Stork Raving Mad
by J. Tyler
Summary: The future of mutantkind will depend on a pregnancy and a lawsuit. The Brotherhood and the XMen must work and live together to make it happen. Meanwhile, an unknown friendly power wants Rogue to defeat the Phoenix without hurting Jean Grey.
1. The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

Here is the obligatory: I don't own any of the X-Men, anything of Marvel Comics, and if anyone says I do, they're lying. I'm making no money off this, either.

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Magneto woke from a sound sleep with the name of a woman on his lips; not the name of his late wife, not of his dead daughter or his living one, not the name of a foe such as Storm or Jean Grey, or an ally, like Mystique. It was the name of a woman who had been his lover so briefly he did not even know her true name. To him, she was 'Lucy Jordan', and the effort of saying 'Lucy', of forming it with lips, tongue, and larynx was what woke him. 

He sat up in bed, blinking in the dim glow of pre-dawn, and rubbed a hand over his face. He had dreamt of her, and the dream was so vivid that the scent of her perfume lingered in his nostrils, his body retained the phantom feeling of her form curled against him. Her lips might only just have left his.

Nearly three months had passed, but she refused to melt comfortably into a mere memory…

Even the Master of Magnetism sometimes had to take a hotel room for the night while traveling, had to sleep in a bed and eat among the mere humans which still constituted the dominant species of Earth, and when he did, he sometimes stopped in the bar for a scotch before retiring.

That was where he met her, in the most prosaic way possible. She occupied the bar stool beside his. She was humming a tune just above her breath. On impulse, he turned to her, and said, "You have a pretty voice, but I can't place the tune."

She had a wonderful profile, and she held the stem of a champagne glass gracefully in her finely-boned hand. "Thank you," she replied. "It's 'The Ballad of Lucy Jordan'. I hope my humming didn't bother you. I was just having a moment of melancholy, and that song fit it very well." Her accent was American—she was far from home. Well, so was he.

"A moment of melancholy? Whatever for?" She wasn't young. Young faces were blank pages; time, personality and experience filled their pages sooner or later, and the resulting story was often pointless and dull. Not hers; the character lines on her face spoke of intelligence and a lively sense of humor. He put her age somewhere between thirty-five and fifty-five.

"I just turned forty-seven. Today. If that weren't enough, I had to travel on business, so I'm here, alone, in a strange city." She sipped her champagne, sending him a look over the top of the glass. Her eyes were a deep grey, and a dimple showed in her cheek when she smiled.

"What was on your first lunchbox?" he challenged her.

"What?" She had a marvelous laugh, too, full and rich. He looked her over—medium-tall, slim, wearing a classic 'little black dress' of such simple cut it had to be very expensive. Her red hair was gloriously, artfully messy, obviously cut and dyed by an expert, and she had shapely legs. Such a shame she wasn't a mutant…

"I have a daughter who's thirty-five, and you don't look any older than she does. If you're forty-seven, you're going to have to prove it. What was on your first lunchbox?"

She grinned, showing pretty teeth. "The Man from Uncle." A television show from the sixties. "I still have it in a closet somewhere. It's probably worth a few dollars to a collector, but it's part of my history."

"Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?"

"In the grocery story with my mother and my brother Danny. I was four. We were doing our Thanksgiving shopping."

"And where were you for the Apollo moon landing?"

"In Vacation Bible School, in the First Presbyterian Church in Lansing, Michigan. Next question?"

"May I buy you another glass of champagne?" It suddenly occurred to him that he—Magneto!— was flirting. At his age! And _she_ was flirting back.

"Yes. Do I pass the test, then?"

"A person who uses the word 'melancholy' in everyday conversation is certainly clever enough to come up with answers straight off the cuff."

The bartender poured her champagne. She picked it up, but before putting it to her lips, she asked, "Do you want to see my ID, officer?"

"And clever enough to fake an ID with a corroborating birthdate."

"What woman in the world—over the age of twenty-one or so— would claim to be older than she really is?"

He smiled at her, enjoying their exchange. "One who adores being told how very good looking she is—and you know it, don't you?"

She was too sophisticated to demur. Instead, she agreed, "Yes, I do."

He glanced at her hands. The left had no rings, so she probably wasn't engaged or married. The right had an impressive ring, a black opal cabochon in a setting encrusted with every color of sapphire—orange, yellow, pink, green, violet and blue. She caught him looking, and held her hand up. "My birthday present to myself. I bought it this morning, in downtown Sydney."

"It's lovely. So, tell me—what is there about this 'Ballad of Lucy Jordan' which so captures your mood?"

She sang a few lines. "At the age of thirty-seven/ She realized she'd never drive/ Through Paris in a sports car/ While the wind blew back her hair.' Of course, I'm forty-seven, so it doesn't fit perfectly. Nor do I have a family—the song goes on to mention her husband and children. I'm divorced—and childless." Her mouth did something tragic when she mentioned her lack of offspring. "But the song does end on a note of hope. She gets to Paris after all. 'She bowed and curtseyed to the man/ Who reached and offered her his hand/ And led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.'"

"Have you a unfulfilled longing to go to Paris?" he asked

"It's not Paris itself so much as what it symbolizes. As Rick says at the end of Casablanca—'We'll always have Paris.'"

There was live music coming from somewhere else in the hotel—a party or a reception. He heard the strains of a waltz, of all things, which gave him an idea. He swallowed the rest of his scotch and stood up. "Well, Miss Jordan—or may I call you Lucy?" He held out his hand.

"If I can call you—?"

"Erik." Why not? Erik was not his name any more; not really. He was Magneto. Erik Lensherr was the past. Erik Lensherr was effectively dead. "May I have this dance?"

"Erik." She curtseyed and took it. "Do you think they'll let us in?"

"Why bother going in? There'll be no privacy. I have another idea."

They found a terrace opposite from the party, and they danced. She was a good dancer—she neither hung on him nor tried to lead. The street lights and hotel lights cast shadows across her face, striping it, an illusion of mutanthood. After the waltz was over, he looked down at the sultry, seductive creature in his arms, and yielded to impulse once again.

"Might I suggest some more champagne?"

"That would be lovely." she replied.

"We could drink it upstairs." he suggested.

She was much too sophisticated not to know what he meant—would she spend the night with him? The dance had made them preternaturally aware of one another. There was not a flicker of surprise in her eyes, and her smile was wide and warm.

Once there, she was—they were—It was as if the only two people who spoke a particular language found each other in a foreign land.

The next morning, her hair was spread out over the next pillow, all the shades of autumn transformed into silk. She looked good even in the unforgiving light of day, without makeup, her eyes still puffy with sleep. She breakfasted with him in his room, as much at ease as if they had spent every morning together for years, both of them in fresh white hotel robes, bare feet, messy hair.

As the breakfast tray emptied, he grew edgy. What would she expect of him now? What should he say? There was no place in his life, his destiny for a lover. Particularly not an ordinary human woman. Not even if she made him laugh. Not even if she satisfied something in him which was more complicated than mere physical desire.

"Lucy."

She looked up at him from the newspaper, and smiled. "Yes?"

"Last night was wonderful, but—."

"This can't go any further." She finished the sentence for him. "We're neither of us children, Erik. I know how these things are done, even if I've nev—. Sudden passion with a total stranger isn't sustainable. We have lives we have to get back to." Her serious expression gave way to one of her impish, wicked grins. "I have to say 'Thank you for my birthday present!' I thoroughly enjoyed it." She snorted with a laugh she did her best to suppress.

"My pleasure." He gasped out between laughs of his own. "I like your laugh.

They kissed goodbye at his door.

He did not ask her name.

He did not ask for it at the desk, nor for her room number.

A few hours later, he caught a glimpse of her as she got into a cab. She was wearing sunglasses which hid most of her face.

Yet nearly three months later, he was still dreaming about her.

He got out of his empty bed and went into the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. _If she had known who I am—and more importantly, what I am, she would have been horrified_, he told himself_. If I got to know her better, she would very likely have turned out to be self-obsessed, vain and shallow. A fine thing it would have been, if she had started talking about her anti-mutant beliefs last night! It is better this way. It would never have worked. Never._

* * *

A/N: Next chapter: Where 'Lucy Jordan' is, who she is, and what's happening to her. I know this is a departure from the usual kind of fic. I hope somebody likes it. 


	2. Hallucinations

Grace Engstrom was on the way to her doctor when the hallucinations began. She put her car into reverse, glanced back to be sure she was clear, and the little red lion figurine on the rear shelf blinked, turned its head to look at her, and said, clearly and distinctly, "Don't go there."

Her foot slipped off the gas, and her late-model Lexus stopped with a tooth-rattling jolt. "What?" she asked. She had bitten her tongue when the car jolted, quite painfully, which convinced her she wasn't dreaming.

"Don't go there.," it repeated. It sounded young, male, and slightly nasal.

"This isn't really happening," she said. "This is a symptom of early menopause."

"You're betting more than your own life on it." the lion replied.

"What does that mean? And why am I talking back to a hallucination?"

It didn't respond. After a wary moment, she reached back and picked it up, half- expecting it would be soft, warm and alive.

It was cold, solid plastic, as always. Her brother Arthur and his family had visited her one summer, and stayed for three days. Her niece Andie found the lion in a box of cereal, and immediately gave it to her Aunt Grace. Grace adored all her nieces and nephews, but also liked her elegant townhouse as it was, free of all things cutsie and tacky. Therefore, she found a place of honor for it in her car, where she didn't have to look at it very often.

Grace regarded the crudely molded toy, then put it in the cup holder, where she could keep an eye on it without craning her neck as she drove.

"Right." She took a deep breath, and finished backing out.

Every so often during the drive, she glanced down at the lion, but it stayed quiet and still.

She arrived at her doctor's, had her weight and blood pressure checked, and was shown into an examination room by a nurse, who handed Grace a paper vest and sarong and left her alone. She had just removed her blouse when a woman's voice behind her said, "Go home and wait for me there."

Dropping her blouse, she whirled around to see—a poster of a cartoon stork. It wore a doctor's vest, eyeglasses, and held an open scroll between its wing feathers. Printed on the scroll was a check list of pre-natal care tips. It had long, feminine eyelashes.

The stork shifted position so its weight was on the other leg, ruffled its feathers, and repeated, "Go home and wait for me there."

It looked like a cartoon on TV. Grace reached out and brushed the poster with her fingertips. It was only paper; there was no flatscreen television built into the wall.

"You're ink on paper." she said to it. "You can't talk. You don't have a brain, and storks can't talk anyway."

It said nothing.

"Anyhow, what do you mean, 'Go home and wait for me there?'"

The stork poster remained stubbornly silent.

"It isn't bad enough that I'm seeing and hearing things. I have to try to interact with them. At least I'm in the right place, if I have to lose my mind. The doctor's going to walk in the door any moment." she murmured to herself, and finished changing into the examination garments.

The nurse knocked on the door, and explained that she had to take some samples. After drawing blood from Grace's arm, the nurse handed her a plastic cup and pointed her to the bathroom.

Peeing into a small container was awkward and disgusting, but she managed to half-fill it. The woman took it, capped it, and, saying, "Doctor Bertram will be with you shortly.", left the room.

'Shortly' meant nearly an hour, but Grace, who was wise to her doctor's sense of time, had her work to keep her occupied. Interweave Knits was doing a feature article about her, and they wanted an original knitting pattern to run with it. She chose a tweedy, green-grey yarn from among the skeins in her bag, and began what she had conceived of as a cardigan with loose, flowing lines.

She had three inches of the back knitted by the time the doctor entered. "The clock just started ticking." remarked the stork. Grace shot it a quick glare, and then transferred her attention to the doctor.

"Hello, Grace." He didn't seem to notice anything unusual, such as a moving, talking poster promoting a particular brand of pre-natal vitamins, but he did seem nervous. As he spoke, he mopped his sweaty brow with a paper towel.

"Hi, Al. How's Melody?" Grace had known her doctor, Alexander Bertram, for well over twenty years, and been his patient for most of them. He and his wife, Melody, were what Grace thought of as friendly acquaintances. She was glad to speak to them at cocktail parties and weddings for ten minutes every six months, and didn't miss them at all in between.

""Oh, fine, just—She's fine. Now, as to why you're here today. You said you think you may be going into early menopause."

"Yes. It's been two months, going on three, since I had my period." _Plus, I'm hallucinating…_

"I see." He made a note on her chart. "Have you considered that there might be another explanation?"

"Of course, but I'm hoping it isn't as serious as a tumor or a cyst." Ovarian cancer had claimed her college roommate four years before; it had been a slow and painful death. Grace's palms grew damp with fear when she thought of that possible explanation.

"A cyst or tumor." repeated the doctor. "No. It's nothing like that. This will be as much of a surprise to you as it was to me. I ran a test using the sample you provided. Grace, you're pregnant."

Her mouth fell open, and she gasped. "Al— that just isn't funny. I'm forty-seven. And you know as well as I do that isn't possible. After Jack and I tried for eight years, tried _everything_."

Her words died in her throat, and she swallowed hard. Fertility clinics, fertility drugs, alternative medicine, in vitro fertilization using his cells and hers, using her cells and a donor's, using his cells and a donor's. Always with the same result. Her cells died in the Petri dish, unfertilized, and viable embryos died rather than implant in her womb.

In the end, when the only option left was to use a surrogate mother and donor cells, to make a child who would be completely unrelated to her—her husband had opted instead to find a woman who had no difficulty conceiving his children, and their marriage ended.

"I can't be pregnant. I've never been pregnant. Infertility doesn't just reverse itself, not at age forty-seven!" she protested.

"I don't know, but on the form you filled out, you indicated tenderness in your breasts, a feeling of nausea from the time you wake until about 11AM—."

"I don't actually throw up." she interrupted. "My stomach feels iffy for a while, but I've found out that peanut butter on whole wheat toast and chocolate pudding helps, so that's been my breakfast lately. And lunch."

"I see. Any other food cravings?"

"No."

"You also answered 'Yes' to the question, 'Have you had unprotected intercourse recently?' When was that, exactly?"

"That was in Australia—." _Oh. My birthday. The first and only one-night-stand of my life. Which was about two weeks before my period was due. I am pregnant._

"I told you to go home and wait for me there." said the stork poster, with offended dignity.

She kept herself from snapping, "You shut up!" at it. Barely.

The doctor had been watching her face. Now he nodded. "It's true, Grace."

"Oh." It sank in. Her knees threatened to give way, and she sat down on a chair, paper sarong and all. A smile she could not control began on her lips and spread a glow through her whole body. _I'm pregnant. I'm going to have a baby._ She looked up at the medical man. "What do I do now? Vitamins, exercises, childbirth classes?"

"We'll get to that in just a moment. First, I have something else to tell you. Do you remember when you were here for your annual pelvic and mammogram?"

"Yes. That was—four months ago."

"That's right. At the time, I took a DNA sample to screen for the breast cancer gene. The results came back."

"No. No. I can't have it. Not when I'm finally going to have a child, it would be too cruel—."

"You don't have it, Grace. Instead, the test revealed—There's no easy way to say this. You're a mutant."

She laughed, half in relief, half because the suggestion was so outrageous. "Don't be ridiculous, Al. You know as well as I do that if someone's a mutant, it shows up when they're young—before they're twenty. And as long as we've known each other! You should know I'm perfectly normal!"

"I think it did show—it just isn't obvious. Look at these." He drew several photographs from his inside pocket, and placed them on the desk beside her.

She fanned them out. "Old Christmas party photos. This must be from 1984. What a horrible haircut, I knew it even at the time. What was I thinking?"

"You're not looking at them right. Look at how much Melody and I have changed—and how little you have."

"Al—."

"It's more than on the outside, Grace. You're in the same state of health that you were at thirty. Your blood pressure is as steady as a rock, you never talk about dieting, and I know for a fact you've never had liposuction or botox injections."

"Al! That's enough. I refuse to let you ruin this day for me. The lab made a mistake, that's all. It happens. I'll give you another sample, they'll run the screening again, and it'll be normal."

"You've already had a second screening. That was why I ordered a blood sample."

"If they can get results that fast, why did it take four months the first time?"

He looked away. " Mutant gene screening is considered urgent, and breast cancer screening is lower priority, so it takes longer."

"Really? It's considered more urgent to test a teenager to see if she can bend spoons without touching them than it is to screen her mother for a deadly disease? What a lovely set of priorities." She stood up, and the paper sarong unwrapped itself, forcing her to grab at it.

"I have to ask you to find another doctor.", he said, sounding as though he'd rehearsed his words. "I belong to the Association for Genetic Purity, and I don't accept mutant patients. I only saw you today as a personal favor."

"Al, I—Look. For the sake of our friendship, I'll forgive you. Eventually. I'm going to get a second opinion from another lab, because obviously the technicians here are incompetent. When I come back with a clean genetic bill of health, you can apologize. Forget the pre-natal care. I'll just go buy a book."

"You don't mean you're going to have it?"

"Yes, I do mean I'm going to have it. I won't care if it's a boy or a girl or if it's a Down's Syndrome baby, or if it has three eyes. I'll love it all the more. Goodbye, Doctor Bertram. Now—get out of here and let me get dressed."

"One more thing." He didn't budge. "I am required to inform you I must report all confirmed mutants to the local Mutant Registration Board within twenty-four hours."

She closed her eyes and sighed. "Tell me, Al. Have you only recently become such a nasty, foul-minded little jerk? Or, like my supposed mutancy, have you always been one, and it just didn't show until now?"

He gasped, and she heard the door open and close with unnecessary force.

She dressed quickly, pulling on her garments with rage, but her happiness overwhelmed the anger. Pausing before putting on her blouse once more, she turned sideways and looked at her midsection in the mirror on the examination room wall, imagining it full and round with her future child. She touched her still-flat stomach with wonder. _A baby. I'm pregnant. I'm going to have a baby._


	3. The Yarn Shop

She left the doctor's office and headed to the nearest pharmacy. As she browsed the shelves, she thought, _I can go the single mother route without any problems—I'm financially secure, and, thank God, I'm at an age where I don't care what people think or say about me._

_The question is_, _do I try to track down 'Erik' and tell him I'm going to have a baby? **His** baby… He already has a family. He mentioned his thirty-five year old daughter. He may have other children—even grandchildren. He's probably married. I can just imagine their reaction, if they found out he's going to have an out-of-wedlock child. _

_No. Better to leave him alone._

_But what if he has a family history of heart disease, or some other inheritable condition? It could be a matter of life and death for the baby. If I could somehow get into contact with him anonymously, or hire a private investigator…_

The pharmacy had plenty of vitamins and a selection of reference books for the expectant mother. She chose from among them, and headed up to the check out, right past a display of stuffed toys, which remained thankfully silent. They reminded her of the talking lion and the stork poster. _What was going on with me?_ she wondered. _Was it my subconscious acting up? What a strange footnote to the happiest day of my life._

She went shopping in the historic district, where the baby shops had diaper bags with sunny Provincial prints on them, clothes made out of pesticide–free, undyed organic cotton, and gauze-draped cribs like solid clouds a baby could nestle in. It was a day for looking and dreaming, rather than spending money, but the salespeople didn't mind. They knew a woman with a Prada handbag and the pearly glow of an expectant mother meant profits; if not that day, then in the future.

As so often happened when she went shopping, she ended up in a yarn store. All the while she shopped that day, her fertile imagination had envisioned new designs, new combinations and patterns—baby knits. She saw pumpkin-orange baby hats with a green 'stem' on the top, fleecy mohair receiving blankets and denim-colored booties. Now she wanted the yarns to bring them to reality.

_My editor and my agent have been hinting I should do a baby-knits book for years, but I couldn't write one, or even design a single pattern—it just hurt too much. Now, though…Tiny Graces would make a good title for it, I think. It would fit into the series. _Pushing open the door, she entered her favorite store.

The bells on the door jangled a cheery greeting, followed by a friendly "Hello" from Melanie, the girl behind the counter. Sara, the yarn shop's owner, was talking to a customer by the shelf of flashy, funky scarf yarns. She turned when she recognized Grace's voice.

"Hello, Grace! We have in some new cashmere-lambswool blend yarn. I know you'll love it. It's in the second room." Sara turned back to her other customer. "That's Grace Engstrom. She's a marvelous designer. We have her latest book, Simple Grace, up by the counter, and the other three on the shelves in back."

"You'll have to find some more shelf space for me soon. It's a done deal. The Aussie spinners have signed. I now have my own line--six different yarns in a selection of designer colors. In three months, the 'Yarns with Grace' collection will be making their debut."

"Congratulations! That's wonderful." Sara limped over and hugged her. She was a stout, grandmotherly woman with white hair in a shining, smooth bob. "I was hoping it would work out. It would have been a shame for you to have gone all the way to Australia for nothing."

"Oh, it wouldn't have been for nothing even if the deal fell through." _And that's not telling the half of it! After all, I came back with an unexpected souvenir. Which will be debuting in six and a half months or so…. _she thought. "I always wanted to go there some day, and now I have."

"Well, this makes it even better, then." Sara told her, cheerfully. "Now, tell me what these yarns are going to be…"

_I'm really lucky_, Grace thought as she browsed through the washable wool yarns after filling Sara in on all the details. _Right now, there's nothing about my life that I would want to change. Nothing. Except, possibly, my doctor._

At that moment, the label on a skein of Baby Alpaca Grande spoke to her.

"Don't go home!"

More specifically, it was the illustration of an adorable baby alpaca that spoke.

Grace's head swam for a moment, and her vision blurred. "No!" she hissed at it, under her breath. "You're not—Why shouldn't I go home'?"

"Don't go home!" insisted the baby alpaca. It had a high, squeaky voice, and huge, liquid dark eyes. " Don't go! Don't go!"

"No! I am not going to start obeying a figment of my imagination." Grace glanced around. No one was looking at her funny…yet. "Why shouldn't I go there, anyway?"

"Don't go! Don't go!" It was horrifying how many yarn labels had pictures of animals on them—alpacas, sheep, camels, cashmere goats, angora rabbits, and buffalo. The baby yarns had teddy bears, lambs, kittens and puppies, and all of them joined the baby alpaca in an insane—literally, Grace feared—chorus.

_I've gone insane,_ she thought. _This morning I was a sane, rational human being, and now I'm crazy. Worse, I'm a crazy **mutant.**_

She looked around as the labels echoed, "Don't go! Don't go home!" at her for as long as it took her to blink three times. Then Grace Engstrom, innovative designer, author of four books, shrewd businesswoman, sultry seductress, financially independent mother-to-be, whose life was, for one brief moment in time, absolutely perfect, did something she had never done in her life before. She fainted.

When she came to, the voices were quiet, and a ring of concerned faces had gathered around her. "I'm all right. I am, really."

Sara, whose hip replacement surgery wasn't for another six weeks, tried to pick Grace up single-handed. "No. Please, Sara. No, I don't think I need an ambulance. It's low blood sugar. I skipped lunch. Plus—I only found this out recently, but I'm pregnant."

"Oh, sweetie, how wonderful! Melanie, hon, take ten dollars from the cash drawer and go next door to Starbucks. Grace needs to get something in her. Something healthy, now!"

After orange juice and a scone, she had recovered enough to finish her shopping. Out of gratitude to Sara and Melanie, she spent lavishly, buying five skeins here, a dozen there—but nothing with an animal on the label.

While she was waiting for the total, a knitted lamb atop a display of baby yarns said, "Take me with you."

_Dementia or delusion or whatever this is, I'm not about to answer back in front of people_, Grace thought furiously. _Is every anthropomorphicized animal out there going to start ordering me around?_

"Take me with you!" The lamb started bouncing up and down with impatience. For a wooly toy lamb with a big blue bow around its neck, it had a surprisingly gravelly voice, complete with a Brooklyn accent.

"Take him with you!" squeaked the labels of yarn around the shop. "Take him with you!" The volume of their cries increased until Grace wanted to cover her ears—only she was afraid that wouldn't help. Melanie finished ringing up her purchase, and Grace handed over her credit card. Soon she was signing the sales slip and gathering up her bags. She had bought enough to fill two of the largest shopping bags in the place.

Suddenly the chorus ceased. "Grace?" Sara called to her as she was about to exit. "Just a moment." She limped over to the door. "I saw you looking at him." she said, and held out the wooly lamb toy. "Here you are, dear. A gift for your little one-to-be."

"Thank you, Sara." The shop owner was beaming at her. Grace summoned up the best smile she could. _I can't hurt Sara by refusing her gift. I'll just have to call a psychiatrist in the morning._ She hugged her friend, put the lamb in one of her bags, and left the shop.

Since it was already after five o'clock, her next stop was a favorite restaurant. By the time she had finished, it was fully dark. She made the drive home while a tranquil Mozart symphony played on the classical station, and neither the lion nor the lamb said a single word.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so where am I going with this? Next chapter starts some serious action, and both the X-Men and the Brotherhood will take notice. Erik is in for a shock. 


	4. The Flashlight

As she was getting out of the car with her bags, the lamb said, "Take the big flashlight with you."

She stopped. "Why? Give me a good reason why I should go to the trouble of digging that thing out of the trunk."

The flashlight in question had been a Christmas gift from Grace's brother Arthur. It was unwieldy, it weighed over two pounds, and the 16-LEDs made it so bright it could be seen from over a mile away. In the five years she had it, she had never had a reason to use it. It was, in fact, high on her list of 'Worst Christmas Gifts Ever', and it had a way of rattling around in the trunk until it found the most inaccessible spot to get wedged in. Getting it out would be a hassle.

"If you don't, you won't live to have your baby."

She froze. _If it had said anything but that, I'd scoff and go straight in…Whatever's doing this is clever. It knows what buttons to push. What if I get it, and it turns out I didn't need it? The worst that would happen would be that I'd feel like a fool. If it turns out I do need it, I'll have to start taking the animals seriously—which is probably bad. But if I don't take it, and I do need it…I could wind up dead._

It had wedged itself into the center of the spare, and she got smudges on the cuffs of her cherry-blossom print blouse. She suspected they wouldn't wash out_. I hope this is worth it._

As she went up the short walk to her front door, she noticed the security light over it, the one which was guaranteed not to burn out, ever, was dark. However, since there was still enough light to see by, she didn't turn on the flashlight; not yet.

She had her keys ready in her hand—an urban safety tip for women. There was a can of pepper spray swinging from it—another precaution.

The back of her neck prickled, as if some insect was crawling on her. She turned the key, opened the door, and went inside. The light switch was to the left of the door, and when she flipped it, nothing happened.

So she turned on the flashlight.

A howl in stereo staggered her, and she saw two figures grab frantically for the goggles they wore, tearing them from their faces and throwing them down. _Night-vision goggles_, she realized. _Turning on my flashlight must be like turning on the sun_.

Blinded as he was, the nearest of them took a roundhouse swing at her; she brought the flashlight up to protect herself, and its beam shone full in his face, which made him stumble backward and trip on the steps down to her sunken living room. He fell, and hit something with a thunk. She turned to the other, fumbling for her pepper spray with fingers made weak by panic, and sprayed it in his eyes at a distance of inches.

He screamed, a surprisingly high pitched, almost feminine tone, and made a rush—whether for her, or for the door, she wasn't sure. She flattened herself against the wall as he barreled past her out the door. She heard his feet patter on the sidewalk, then crunch on the gravel—and then came the crack of a high-powered rifle shot.

She shone her light out the door, keeping flat against the wall, and its beam illuminated the figure of her second attacker as he made a few last uneven steps, and fell to the ground. _What? Who shot him?_

Her question was answered immediately as someone leapt out of a van she had not seen at the back of the parking lot. "Hey, Andy, Dave!" he called, joyously. "I got her!" He approached the body on the ground, and he turned it over as her heart pounded so hard she could hear it, feel the veins in her temples throb.

"Andy—oh, God, Andy!" he screamed. He looked up, toward the house, at her. She saw that he was only a boy, no more than eighteen or twenty. _Way to ruin your life, kid_, she thought. His face contorted with horrified fear, and he turned, dashed for the van. The engine turned, failed, turned again, and caught.

She saw it swerve away, and she spun on her heel, to play the flashlight over her living room.

The first thing she saw was the graffiti spraypainted on the wall in garish, bloody red.

'TWO DOWN. MUTIES BEWARE A.G.P.'

_A.G.P.—the Association for Genetic Purity_, she thought. _Al didn't just call the Registration Board. He called his friends._ She steadied herself, and moved the beam over more of the room. It had been vandalized so thoroughly it was nearly demolished, the upholstery slashed and gutted, the house plants smashed on the floor, her books torn apart and strewn around. There were holes punched in the walls, and the throw rugs were every which way, rucked up and wayward—and then she saw the other attacker. He was lying at the bottom of the steps, and there was blood on his face. When he fell, he had landed headfirst on her granite carving from Japan, which usually sat on the hearthstone of the fireplace. He was not moving.

She approached him cautiously, wary of him, wary of the open door behind her, listening for any sound that meant danger. He didn't move. She touched his neck, feeling for a pulse—and ready to smash his face in the rest of the way with the flashlight if she had to.

His pulse was thin and thready. _He's not likely to get up and try for me again. _She went back to the door, closed and locked it, and found her purse.

She explained matters to the 911 dispatcher, who advised her to go to the bathroom and lock herself in until the police arrived. There was a powder room right off the hall, so she went there, bringing the lamb along with her.

_If I hadn't brought the flashlight with me, I would be dead, _she thought. _I must call Arthur and tell him his gift saved my life. For that matter…_

She cleared her throat. "Thank you for telling me to bring the flashlight. I'm—um, going to start taking your warnings more seriously."

The lamb said nothing.

When the silence bothered her, she asked, "So—am I a mutant?" She had thought it to herself in the yarn shop, but she hadn't believed it. Not then. Not yet.

It cocked its head at her. "What do you think?"

"I think I'm having a conversation with a stuffed toy. By any ordinary human standard, I'm sure I'm clinically insane. I can only hope mutants are prepared to be more broadminded. Yes, I'm a mutant. What about the baby?"

"Him, too."

"It's a boy?"

"That's what I said."

"Hmmm." was all she managed. "How do you know all of this? Are you God?"

It said nothing.

"Are you Satan?"

Silence.

"Are you an echo off the back of my skull?"

Quiet hung heavy in the bathroom.

"An extraterrestrial? The baby?"

Still nothing.

"You could give me some help here. I'm prepared to listen."

Waiting was torturous. She talked just to fill time and displace silence.

"I never was anti-mutant, at least. I never voted for or supported any of the acts or regulations."

"Silence implies consent."

"What do you mean by that?" She tried to fix her eyes on its, but the lamb's eyes were black buttons, and it didn't work well.

"You haven't voted in the last eight years."

"There was nothing or no one I cared to vote for!" She thought about it for a moment. "Oh, that hurts. You mean I should have voted against anti-mutant policies. I contributed to my own persecution. All right, I was wrong. What do I do about it now?"

"Ask for your file."

"What?"

"Ask for your file."

"Which file? Ask who? You could be a little more forthcoming here."

Her phone rang. She answered it.

"Oh, Grace, thank God. You're all right. It's Melody. Listen—whatever you do, don't go home. Al is the stupidest back-stabbing sack of slime alive. Do you know what he did?"

"He told the Association for Genetic Purity about me."

"Yes—that's right! How did you know?"

"I'm already home. I'm all right, though." She explained to Melody, who exploded.

"That putrid cockroach! He came home and told me about it. 'You did what?' I said. 'You puddle of dog vomit, Grace knitted booties for your three children. For our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, she gave us a crocheted tablecloth with twelve matching napkins that must have taken her hundreds of hours to make, and you went and ratted on her? Don't you know what they're going to do?'

"He looks at me and sniffs. 'I don't know what you mean.' 'You ignorant moron, they shouldn't be called the AGP! They ought to be called the KKK! Don't you read their literature? What do you think 'Actively and aggressively pursuing the goal of an untainted world' means?' His jaw drops, and he starts choking out 'It isn't true.' The idiot!"

Grace was reminded why she was content to see Al and Melody socially only two or three times a year. They conducted their marriage as if it were a war.

"Anyhow, Grace. I'm begging you. If you can, will you keep his name out of this? Not for his sake, the slop bucket, and he's sleeping on the sofa for the next month. Not for my sake either, but for the kids. For Sammy and Josh and Kristin. Please? I'll do anything."

"If I can. I can't promise. You know what I do want?" Grace looked down at the lamb. "You still have keys to his office, right? I'd like my medical file. Everything there is."

"You got it! Call me tomorrow, tell me where to bring it."

After their goodbyes, Grace regarded the lamb warily. "What do I do with it once I get it?"

"Give it to the bald guy on wheels."

"All right. Here is where more information would be very useful. What bald guy on wheels? The first one I happen to see? Am I looking for a trucker with tattoos up and down his arms? A motorcyclist? A gay rollerblader? A straight rollerblader?"

She saw flashing colored lights dance across the wall, and a moment later, someone banged on the door. "This is the police!"

* * *

Some hours later, Grace sat slumped on the loveseat in her workroom and stared at the floor. The lamb rested on the seat's arm, and she had a skein of Baby Alpaca Silk in cornflower blue from her yarn stash in her hand. It wasn't Baby Alpaca Grande, but Grace doubted that mattered. The illustration was the same. 

_If I weren't pregnant_, she thought furiously, _all this never would have happened. I wouldn't have gone to the doctor today, and… No, that's not true. Al took my DNA sample for the breast cancer screening over a month before I went to Australia and **got** pregnant. He only tested me again today because I went to him today. Sooner or later I would have gone to him again anyway._ She looked around the room. _At least this escaped those bigots._

Her workrooms—the two rooms on the third floor at the top of the house—were the true heart of her home. This was where she stored her supplies and equipment—the skeins of yarn waiting to be used, the buttons, zippers and ribbons to fasten them, the sewing machine, and the blocking board where she stretched components into shape. It was also her office—which meant her computer had survived—and her entertainment center, because she had to do something while she knitted.

More importantly, it was where she stored the finished pieces, whether they were for her own use, made for sale or to give as gifts, the pieces commissioned by individuals and the pieces intended for photo shoots, for magazines and catalogs. They represented hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars.

_Up here I can almost imagine it didn't happen._

_Almost…_

_Not really._

_Will this night never end?_

She could hear the police moving around down below her, talking, taking pictures, speculating. She could also still smell the reek of her perfumes, smashed against the bedroom wall as if her assailants were throwing baseballs, mixed with the stench of excrement and the fumes of spray paint. The three invaders had wantonly destroyed and befouled her house, trashing everything, scrawling obscenities on the walls with her lipsticks, shredding some of her clothes and smearing others with filth. Her great-grandmother's majolica collection lay smashed all over the dining room floor, the food in her kitchen had been spread everywhere, and they had slashed her bed to pieces.

_I will never feel safe here again, _she realized. _I will never be able to live here without seeing it as it is now. No amount of cleaning and redecorating will fix it. I'll have to move._ A heavy darkness descended on her heart. "I want to go home," she said out loud. "But I don't know where that is anymore."

"Ma'am?" A young police officer poked his head around the door. "There's a Professor Tisdale downstairs. She says she's come to get you."

"Yes." Grace picked up the lamb and swayed to her feet. Eleanor Tisdale lived nearby in the same townhouse complex. She was a professor of comparative religions at the University of Michigan, and a good friend. She was the first person Grace had thought of when the police asked if she had somewhere to go.

Grace had not told her that she was a mutant, but she had said, "I'll understand if you don't feel you can take me in. There's probably going to be some trouble attached to helping me."

"Don't be ridiculous." Eleanor had snorted. "I'll make up the spare room and be right over."

Now she was waiting for Grace in the hallway, looking around at the destruction. "Oh, Grace, I'm so sorry. Your beautiful home." She was about sixty years old, with short salt-and-pepper hair, and she wore small round glasses.

"I'm all right." Grace said, automatically.

"No, you're not. Here." The older woman wrapped an afghan around Grace's shoulders, swaddling her and the lamb together.

Grace fingered the soft material. "This is one of mine."

"Yes. You gave it to me on my last birthday. Now let's go. I put the kettle on, and we'll have a cup of Sleepymint tea once we get to my place. We have to make it past the reporters first, though."

Police walked them past the media, who called out urgent questions. Grace answered a few of them, but kept moving. "Wait a moment." she said as they passed her car. They paused as she unlocked the car and retrieved the little lion from the cup holder. "He's my good luck charm." she explained, weakly.

Soon she was in Eleanor's bright warm kitchen, where a teakettle whistled and Eleanor's elderly golden retriever, Cinnamon, dozed on the floor. She sat down at the table and placed the lion directly in front of her, as Eleanor bustled about getting tea.

"Eleanor, in that book you gave me about the American Indians, there was something about animal spirit guides, Manitous. I remember that when a boy was at the point of manhood, he would go out into the forest and fast until he had visions, and whatever animal came to him in the vision and spoke to him was his Manitou."

"Yes, that's right. Then he would go back to his tribe, and make up a chant, a ballad about what he saw, the wisdom his Manitou gave him. He would also get an image of his Manitou tattooed on his chest, so he carried the protection of his guide everywhere he went. Why do you bring it up now?"

"It's something to talk about that isn't…what happened. I don't recall if women went through the same ritual."

"No. Women had spirit guides, too, but they had rituals of their own. Unfortunately, women's mysteries are still mysteries. They didn't share them with researchers—because the researchers were all male, back then."

"That's a shame. So, although seeing, hearing and talking with animal visions was considered an important stage of development and growth to the Indians, and perfectly normal, the settlers didn't see it that way, and made them all become Christians."

"Essentially. Although every religion has its ancient tradition of communication with anthropomorphic animals, spirit guides or gods. The Bible has more than one recorded vision where a creature with wings and the head of a lion or a bull speaks with a man's voice—the symbols of the Four Apostles of the Gospel. Also, there were the trickster stories—Coyote of the Western Indians, Spider of Africa, Bre'r Fox and Bre'r Rabbit of the American South. They weren't all holy and good. Sometimes the lessons they taught were not to be greedy or foolish—the hard way. They were gods with a sense of humor, but not always a nice one."

"Yet today anyone who said they saw and spoke to an animal guide would be called a liar, or institutionalized. Even though at one time it was perfectly normal. We're a more sophisticated culture, and the natural world is disappearing all around us, so perhaps spirit guides would have to manifest in another form." Grace looked at her lion.

"Here's your tea. That's an interesting idea. Grace…I'm sorry I'm bringing this up, but that graffiti on the wall. The AGP. Are you a mutant?"

"Are you going to ask me to leave if I am?"

"No. But I would like to know what I'm getting into."

"I am. I should have said so over the phone. I'm sorry. How—or what?"

"I only found out today. So far, the only outward manifestation of it is that I seem to be aging slower than normal."

"I knew you looked too good for your age. So it isn't natural!" Eleanor teased. "Mrs. Jensen swears you must have had a facelift. However—I know what sort of feeling, what sort of violence accompanies anything to do with mutants. I'm not sure I have the resources, in every sense of the word, to cope with that for very long. I don't know who would."

"I understand." Grace drank tea. "Tomorrow I'll work out where to go and what to do. Thank you for taking me in tonight, though."

"I'm glad to do it."

* * *

The next morning, Magneto got up, showered, and went down for coffee. Taking it to his office, he turned on CNN, and read over various documents. Not until he heard **'anti-mutant hate crime'** did the television command his full attention. 

"—coming to you live from the scene of the crime, in this normally quiet neighborhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where we're speaking with Police Chief Arnold Wilcox. Can you tell us exactly what happened here last night?" A young Hispanic woman held a microphone for a sweating, florid faced man in uniform.

"Yes. Around seven-thirty yesterday evening, the victim, Grace Engstrom returned home. She parked her car over there. Now, there were three perpetrators. Two of them were waiting for her inside her front door, while the third was in a van parked over there. He had a rifle. It was his job, if she got away from them, to pick her off before she escaped." The chief gestured, and the camera panned to show the car, and the site where the shooter waited in the van.

Magneto watched and listened as the tale unfolded. The woman in question had been extremely fortunate. He drank his coffee while he saw the destruction inside the house.

_Typical_, he thought.

"The shooter sees that he shot his friend, and he panics. He took off in the van, but he got rattled and ran right into a tree. He wasn't hurt, but the van was totaled, so he got out and ran for it. As you can see, the townhouse complex was built around a wooded area. He got lost, and so we were able to pick him up at four this morning."

"Can there be any doubt he's a suspect?"

"None at all. You saw how the place was torn up—he has fibers all over him, and if that weren't enough, his prints are all over the gun."

"I understand he claims Ms. Engstrom used her mutant powers to make him shoot his coconspirator."

"He's saying that, but that man he shot ran out of the house with a face full of pepper spray. He had his hands covering his face, and it was dark. The shooter is only 19 years old, and he was worked up. He just got trigger happy."

"And the assailant who hit his head on the stone carving?"

"He's in the hospital, in critical condition."

"Will Ms. Engstrom be charged with any crime?" the reporter asked.

"No. While it's true she's unregistered, she only found out she was a mutant yesterday, and she is still within the two-week grace period for new registries. As for the rest—she was defending herself inside her own home against two intruders who broke in and lay in wait to attack her. Last I heard, it was still legal for a mutant to do that in this country."

"Do you have any parting words to say about the crime, Chief?"

"Yes. This is as ugly and hateful as human nature gets. We all of us have this little voice that tells us not to do stuff like this, but these three fellows weren't listening to theirs."

The image cut back to the studio, where the anchor said, "Grace Engstrom, shown here in file footage from a Knit-a-thon fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina victims, organized by Sara Pulaski, owner of Ewe Need 2 Knit…"

Magneto paid no attention to the anchor's voice, because that was _Lucy Jordan_ in the clip, with her disheveled fiery hair and her smoky eyes. Grace Engstrom was Lucy Jordan, and she was a mutant.

_On some level I must have known it. Why else should I have been so strongly attracted to her, as to no other woman in years? She is a mutant, and now I know where she is…_

The screen flashed to Michigan again, where it now showed the horde of bigots gathered on the street just off the townhouse community complex, where they waved placards calling for her death. As he watched, a bus with anti-mutant banners pulled up and disgorged more of the howling mob, and the reporter explained that anti-mutant groups were gathering from all over the country, holding a deathwatch for the man in the hospital.

_If he dies, they will riot. It shall be "Judge Lynch" and "Mob Rule", and they will tear her limb from limb if they can. No; I will not allow it. No doubt my Brotherhood shall wonder at my decision, but no matter. Besides, can there be a better way to reintroduce myself than as her rescuer?_

He pushed back his chair and stood, but sat back down when a clip taken the night before began to play. Lucy—Grace looked like a child woken from a nightmare, who goes to her parents for comfort—an afghan around her shoulders, and a stuffed toy clasped to her chest. Her hair hung in her face, and grim lines of fear and anger pulled that wide, expressive mouth downward.

"As police escorted Ms. Engstrom to another location last night, she had this to say.."

Grace answered a few questions with one word answers, avoiding the reporters—until the last one asked, "Can you explain the cryptic meaning of 'Two Down' in the graffiti, Ms. Engstrom? I understand you live alone."

Her head lifted at that, and he saw a hint of the woman who lay in his arms, as she said. "Yes. I'm pregnant."

* * *

A/N; With the next chapter, I shall move this fic under the movie X-Men category. 


	5. A Special Escort to a Safe House

While Magneto was absorbing that bit of news, the Professor was watching the same broadcast from the X-Men's Blackbird, en route from Salem Center, New York to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Storm was flying, Cyclops co-piloting, Jean was watching the broadcast with the Professor, and Wolverine was complaining.

"'Providing a special escort to take this broad to a safe house—meaning the School—in another state.' Jeezz—How long are we gonna be stuck with her? I mean, she's bigging up with a kid, and the next thing you know, she'll be having it at the Mansion. We'll be up to it in diapers."

"For as long as she needs our help, Logan. You should know by now that we turn no one away—no matter how disagreeable or troublesome they may be." the Professor told him amiably.

"Hey—was that to my address? I'm no trouble to anybody—." protested Wolverine.

A collective snort went up from his teammates.

"Wait a min—", he began, but Jean interrupted.

"Well, I for one wouldn't mind if she did stay throughout her pregnancy, both as a doctor and as a woman. As a doctor, the chance to study a mutant gestation would be invaluable—and as a woman, I might decide to go through it myself someday." She raised an arch eyebrow. "It would be nice to have an example. I realized I don't know a single mutant who's a mother."

"That's something which Magneto very conveniently ignores." mused Xavier. "Mutants today are not, for the most part, born of other mutants—they are born to normal humans. There are a few—very few—mutants who can claim one mutant parent. I know of no mutant living today who has two mutant parents."

"None at all?" asked Jean.

"None. In fact, the one fertile mutant pairing I know of had a child who was entirely normal and human. Until and unless that changes—until the greater number of mutants are born to mutant parents, mutants can hardly be said to be a species at all—we are more akin to mules—a genetic dead end. Imagine if someone like Stryker discovered a way to block the mutant gene in normal humans—mutants would die out in one generation." The Professor's face was unreadable.

"There's probably eggheads in laboratories right now trying to cook up ways of doing that." stated Wolverine.

"I would be quite surprised if there were not." replied the Professor.

"Here's Hank's clip." said Jean.

The anchor introduced the Beast with "And now from Washington, DC, the special liaison for mutant affairs, Dr. Henry McCoy, with a few words on the Engstrom case."

"Thank you." The blue and furry face of Hank McCoy filled the screen. "I believe I can speak for the mutant population as a whole when I say this crime against Grace Engstrom has shocked and appalled us all—as has the response to it. This is a hate crime of the deepest magnitude, because in this case the victim is no criminal or terrorist, nor a teenager whose new powers are beyond their control.

"Rather than being a menace to society, Grace Engstrom is a law-abiding citizen who has made active, positive contributions to the community. The attack upon her, first by the three vandals last night, and now by those who support their actions, can only breed distrust and fear among mutants everywhere, for if someone like Grace Engstrom cannot live among humans unmolested, who among us can?"

"Thank you, Dr. McCoy. I understand the governor of Michigan has appealed to the President for federal troops to aid in maintaining the peace—is this correct?"

"Yes, it is."

"How has the President responded to his request?"

"As an alternative to sending in troops, the President has arranged for a special escort to conduct Ms. Engstrom to a safe house in another state."

"Thank you, Dr. McCoy. Back to you in Michigan…"

"So much hatred and anger directed against one lone woman." said Storm.

"She won't be alone for long." answered Xavier.

The Blackbird soared over the waters of Lake Superior, growing ever closer to Ann Arbor.

* * *

A/N: A short but significant part. 


	6. Symptoms

_I am sure this waistband was not this snug yesterday, and I didn't eat **that** much. What happened—did my middle expand overnight? I'm sure my breasts did._ _How much bigger are these things going to get? _Grace Engstrom had no choice but to put on some of the same clothes from the day before. Knowing that, she had washed her underwear and bra by hand the night before. Eleanor, her hostess, provided her with a fresh top, but she had to put on the same slacks, and they no longer fastened quite as easily.

She fiddled with her bra straps again. _How could I have ignored what was really happening to my body? I've been loosening these things on all my bras for at least two weeks now, because of the tenderness—which, I might as well face it, was caused by swelling. I should have gone shopping for maternity bras yesterday. Oh, well._

Eleanor knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you sure you're up to sorting through the mess?"

"If I'm not, I'll just go up to the workroom and pack up things there. My brother Daniel called—he has the U-Haul, and he should be here no later than one." _The second best thing to come out of all this, after the baby, is that my family hasn't abandoned me._

She ran a brush through her hair, and went out to face the task of salvaging what she could of her old life.

"Have you seen the news this morning?" asked Eleanor, as they crossed the green space to enter Grace's house by the back way, avoiding the media.

"No." She had been unable to sleep for hours, shaky with fatigue and wound up. Since she was awake, she had passed the time reading the expectant mother reference book, until she nodded off—and overslept as a result.

"It's pretty bad. They were talking about bringing in federal troops. Grace, your plan to drive home with your brother—it may not work. Just off the townhouse community property, there's a mob of protesters."

"But—No. Right now, I'm going to concentrate on what I can handle." She glanced down at the lamb, tucked in the top of her purse. _I'll just have to hope they keep on warning me_. So far that morning, they hadn't said a word.

The police lieutenant who met them at her back door greeted them politely, and told Grace that 'Mrs. Bertram, from your doctor's office', had dropped off her medical file.

She thanked him, and she and Eleanor went into her kitchen. _So Melody came through for me. Now all I need is for a 'bald guy on wheels' to show up. How is my medical record supposed to help the mutant cause? _

However, there was no time to wonder about that, because of all the work to be done. Unpleasant as it was, the heaps and piles of Grace's damaged belongings had to be sorted through, cleaned up, and, if anything was more or less intact, salvaged.

The two women set to work, picking over the piles of clothing, turning over the rubbish for unexpected finds—a tiny earthenware teapot, found intact under a table, a drawer of silverware that had gone overlooked.

"Grace?" asked Eleanor, as they worked. "You seemed to be stressed out enough last night, so I didn't bring it up, but—you're pregnant?"

"Yes, and I'm very happy about it."

"That's just wonderful. I'm very happy for you. I didn't even know you were trying again." Eleanor held up a blouse and inspected it for damage.

"I wasn't. This is a miracle baby—completely unexpected and unplanned. And don't ask me how, because I have no idea. Well, obviously I know how, or at least who, but not why." Grace straightened up and rubbed her back with both hands.

"Who is the father—if I'm not being too intrusive?"

"Don't you mean nosy? No, it's all right. I have to come up with an answer sometime. This is just between us. It was in Australia, it was my birthday, and there was alcohol involved."

"Oh, dear. It's that bad?"

"I'm afraid so. I—didn't even get his full name. How I am ever going to explain this to my kid, I don't know. I'm making it sound sleazier than it was. I was drinking champagne, and he struck up a conversation. He was a very attractive man—silver haired, tall—."

The lion spoke up from her pocket. "Magnetic."

"And very charming, too."

"Magnetic." The lion repeated. She smacked its pocket. _I will tell this my way_, she thought.

"Intelligent, as well."

"Magnetic." insisted the lion.

_What is it getting at?_ "We talked—then he asked me to dance. There was a wedding in the hotel, and their band played a waltz."

"A waltz? How old was he?"

"I would say he was a little older than you."

"Older than I am?" wondered the sixty-year old Eleanor. "Viagra is a wonderful thing."

"I don't think he took any. Doesn't that stuff only last an hour?"

"Grace! I'm shocked." laughed Eleanor.

"I was surprised, myself. After the dance, he suggested we get another bottle of champagne and drink it upstairs in his room. That was about nine weeks ago."

"Was there anything unusual about him? I do have a reason for asking other than pure prurience."

"Nothing I haven't mentioned already." Grace bent down and scooped shredded lingerie into a garbage bag.

"Might he be a mutant, too?"

"Eleanor—your guess is as good as mine."

"It might explain why you weren't able to conceive before. You said they never found anything wrong with you—except that you didn't have children."

"That's enough, isn't it?"

"Maybe you were trying to breed with the wrong species." Eleanor concluded.

Grace straightened up again. "That's an interesting idea. And now I think I'm going to go throw up."

* * *

Magneto and the Brotherhood were on their way to Ann Arbor as well. Although the X-Men had the head-start, the Master of Magnetism had asked himself, _Who would McCoy, sellout lickspittle to the humans that he is, recommend to the President as a 'special escort', and what 'safe house in another state' could he mean?_—and guessed, correctly, _He would turn to Charles, of course. _He had roused his followers—and at that hour of the morning, that was no small thing—and told them to make haste.

Mystique had wanted to know why he was bothering to go to the rescue of this particular mutant, and he had explained "Because I want to." And left it at that.

He usually explained his plans to her—at least partially. Now he could feel her suspicious eyes on him, watching him. He did not care. Their relationship had been moderately long, but it continued more out of habit than an overwhelming passion. From the start, she had made it clear that it would not be an exclusive one, and he had accepted that, turning a blind eye to quite a lot.

He did not imagine having difficulty getting out of it, however.

At the moment, though, his thoughts were elsewhere.

That night in Australia, he had told Lucy-Grace, smilingly, at almost the last moment before that information would be a little too late, "In the spirit of keeping with the times, I can tell you that although I have no diseases, as far as I am aware, I'm still fertile. As spontaneous as this is, I'm afraid I have no, er, 'precautions' with me."

She had smiled back, a hint of pain in the corner of her mouth, and replied, "I am also disease-free, and I have no 'precautions' with me either. However, after trying for eight years—I'll spare you the details—I can't have children."

He had said, "I'm sorry." Although for the sake of mutantkind, he was just as pleased she could not add to the ranks of _Homo Sapiens_, on a personal level, he could feel sympathy for her.

_She was not lying. There was too much sadness and regret in her eyes, her voice. As far as she knew, she was telling the truth. But she might have been mistaken._

And she was telling the truth, if unwisely, on television the night before. Her revelation was fuelling the hated of the mob—at least half the placards referred to her pregnancy, with slogans like 'Her mother should have had an abortion'.

_There is a chance I could be the father of her child. It is not clinical proof, but a history of eight years of infertility, of fruitless efforts to conceive, set against one unplanned night—it is possible. If her genes were sufficiently different from the Sapient norm, no human man could give her children, nor could a human embryo thrive in her womb._

_Perhaps this is the beginning of the Divergence. Perhaps here and now, mutantkind shall become a true species._


	7. Who is Maeve?

A/N: To give credit where credit is overdue, I must thank Gevaisa, whose Fantastic Four/ Doctor Doom fic Minion inspired this one. She has also given me invaluable plot help, and even made me read The Seven Daughters of Eve so I would understand the genetics. Thanks, Gevaisa. May your life straighten out and your muses return.

This chapter gave me fits. Please, if you think it works--or if it doesn't--let me know.

* * *

"Why this one, Erik? And don't give me that 'Because I want to' bull, because you never do anything like this merely on a whim. Why Grace Engstrom?" Mystique slipped into a closer seat on their copter, and leaned closer still. 

"My answer requires a lecture on genetics. Are you in the mood for one?" he queried.

"Try me." She gave him her most seductive smile, white teeth flashing against cobalt blue lips. Her eyes did not match it—they burned a sullen sulphur.

"Very well. The mutant gene is passed on by the male parent, and only the male parent. The mother's genes may determine in what form that gene expresses itself, what powers the child may develop, but without the gene for mutantism—it doesn't matter whether she is a mutant or not."

"Spare me the middle school material, Erik. I'm beyond that."

"As you wish. At this moment, Sapient scientists are hard at work looking for a way to block that mutant gene, to inoculate against it in men, much as if it were smallpox. Once they find a way—and I believe they will do it, for they can be very determined—there will be no more mutant children born to 'normal humans'. Do you know what percentage of mutants are born to normal parents as opposed to mutant parents, my dear?"

"The majority." She shrugged.

"Not merely the majority. An overwhelming majority. 97 percent are born to two human parents. That leaves three percent who have one mutant parent, most usually male. None—none at all—have yet been born alive to two mutant parents. Not one."

"None?" Her brow furrowed.

"None. Now, for a lesson in Mendelian genetics. Roughly half of all children with a mutant father will be male, and roughly half will inherit the mutant gene. Not the same half, mind you—half the girls will inherit it, and half the boys. On average, mind. There are always variations.

"Since only a male can pass on the gene, and he can't pass it on if he didn't get it in the first place, only twenty-five percent of all children with a mutant father will be able to pass on the gene for mutantism. Still with me?"

"Yes!" Mystique snapped.

"Just making sure. Of those twenty-five percent, providing they have children in turn, twenty-five percent of their offspring will be able to pass on the gene. Do you see the math involved? How many children would a mutant have to father before we become self-perpetuating as a species? It could not be done.

"We will be exterminated as a species without firing a shot, without gas chambers, without raising a hand in violence, once they come up with their vaccine. They will render us extinct within a generation. Unless…" He waited again.

"Unless what, Erik?"

"Unless we can come up with a way to improve those odds--to ensure that mutant males father only mutants, so that all male children will be able to pass the gene along in turn. For that, as a species, we need a very special mutation: a genetic divergence which ensures all children with a mutant parent are also mutants."

"Is that possible?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. It happened before—fossil records with DNA and living DNA in every human, Sapient or Mutant attest to it. There really was an 'Eve' once—a single woman from whom we all descend. Not a biblical 'Eve'—an evolutionary one. She lived in Africa, untold millennia ago. She was not the only woman alive at the time--there were others. There would have had to be others, else congenital deformities due to inbreeding would have killed them all.

"But she was the only one whose descendants thrived. She had some adaptation which made her daughters more fertile, and they in turn had daughters, until only her mother-line remained. Thus the world was peopled." He looked out the window for a moment, then went on.

"I have been awaiting the emergence of a woman, a mutant woman I called 'Maeve'—for '**M**utant **A**daptation-**Eve**'. The divergence she would exhibit, the characteristic necessary to the survival of the mutant race would be this: to conceive and bear only mutant children."

"I can see some flaws in your plan right there, Erik." Mystique put in. "As you said of the original Eve, it would take untold millennia for her addition to the gene pool to make a difference—and mutantkind doesn't have millennia."

"That is where science is our friend. Once identified and isolated, the gene can be cultured—and spliced into the DNA of every mutant on earth. Within three generations, every mutant born could carry the relevant gene."

"And you think Grace Engstrom might be this 'Maeve' you're looking for. Even though she only found out she was a mutant yesterday."

"She might be."

"Why would you think it could be her?"

Before he could respond, Mystique drew back her arm, slowly, as if she were simply getting more comfortable. Then she landed an uppercut to his jaw which snapped his head back and made his skull ring. "I'm not stupid, Erik. You think you're the father of her child. That's the only way you would know all that about her. By sleeping with her."

_I wish I had my helmet on for that_, he thought, and caught her ankle in his hand before she could land a kick to his midsection. "You have no right to react so violently—not when I never said a word about the child Sabertooth fathered on you."

It seemed to him that she turned a paler blue. "You knew about that? You couldn't have!"

"My dear girl, of course I knew! I was married. I lived with a pregnant wife. You were vomiting in the morning and putting on weight. Then you disappeared for months. Of course I knew." _And she never told me. She never entirely trusted me. To this day I don't know her favorite color, or favorite food, or her first memory. One could barely dignify this with the word 'relationship.'_

"And it didn't bother you?"

"Not nearly as much as the fact the child turned out to be an ordinary Sapient. I knew the timing was wrong for it to be mine. The whelp even looked like Sabertooth—if he were shaved." _Brutal honesty is called for here._ "I doubt there's one of your indiscretions I don't know about, yet never did I say one word of reproach, much less offer you violence."

"So that is what I mean to you." she marveled, venom in her voice. "So little you can't be bothered to get angry at me for betraying you."

"I never doubted your attachment to me. You always came back, after all. Your loyalty to the cause of mutantkind meant more to me, and so I forgave you for your more intimate betrayals."

"I don't know. I don't know if I can forgive _you_. You don't care about me, do you? Not for myself. Only as a soldier in the cause."

"How could I, when all you give is your body? Mystique, I knew more about—Grace Engstrom," _I nearly said 'Lucy Jordan' by mistake_, "after ten hours than I know about you after nearly twice as many years. Don't claim I didn't ask. You take great pride in your powers; you delight in being anyone and everyone. But in doing so, you run the risk of being no one. And if I betrayed you with her—that is the only time I had ever been unfaithful to you." _The truth. Let her believe it or not as she chooses._

"Interesting choice of words, Erik. Not 'have been unfaithful', but 'had been'—meaning it's over."

"After this, could it be anything else?" he asked her, and finally let her ankle go.

* * *

Grace shut and locked the bathroom door behind her, closed the seat, took a handful of tissues, and sat down. As she had told her doctor only the day before, she didn't actually throw up when morning sickness hit—she only felt as if she would. Strongly. But it made a good excuse to get away by herself for a moment. She buried her face in her hands, and wept as silently as she could into the tissues. _Erik…_

_I'm not really crying over Erik, anyway, I know that. I just need to cry right now. About everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours. The least little thing would have made me cry._

_I'm too experienced, too old, to feel like this._

She could still count her lovers on the fingers of one hand: five.

Her ex-husband hadn't been her first lover, nor had she been entirely celibate in the twelve years since their divorce. After a while, she had started dating again. As Erik had commented to her when they met, she was very good-looking, and knew it; any number of men had been interested in her, and she in them. She had gone out with at least twenty. But in all that time, only three of them had achieved the goal of getting her into bed: Aaron, who she lived with for five years, Jeremy (the rat). And Erik.

She had been in love—Colin, her first—yes, she had loved him. Then Jack. And Aaron. She had loved him, at least for a while. Not Jeremy—he had been her greatest mistake.

She had thought she was mature enough to have a one-night-stand, and walk away.

Then she had one, and found it wasn't that easy. In the morning, she wanted to look over at Erik across the muffins and eggs, and say, "I want to have breakfast with you like this every morning for the next twenty years. At least."

_Of course I didn't—nothing would have killed the glow faster than if I turned into Glenn Close's character from Fatal Attraction, and I didn't want to know about the faithful wife of 40-plus years, the sons and daughters, the curly-haired grandchildren he probably had waiting for him at home. _

She had not imagined leaving him would hurt as much as separating from the man to whom she had been married for ten years, but it had. _Ten hours with the one man, ten years with the other. Funny, isn't it? _Once she was back in her own hotel room, she had cried until she had to get out her biggest sunglasses to cover the ravages.

Talking about Erik with Eleanor, speaking of him so casually, had brought everything back, like ripping the scab off a partly healed wound; she bled again.

_I've got to get hold of myself. There's too much to do._ She washed her face and went back to work.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter, the X-Men arrive. 


	8. The Bald Guy on Wheels

Unfortunately, one of the police officers on duty in the kitchen had a portable television, and on her return from the bathroom, Grace saw and heard exactly what was going on. The horde of anti-mutant protesters on deathwatch, that the man in the hospital was still in critical condition, predictions of an imminent riot. It nearly drove her back into the bathroom, but instead she went to the front door and opened it.

It was an ironically beautiful day in early autumn; the sky was a deep, peaceful blue. She could see neighbors, people she had known for years, peering out of windows or standing on their front walks, looking over at her house. Some of them hastily let their curtains drop or turned away when they saw her. Others pretended not to notice.

_I can't let Danny come here. It's too dangerous_. She turned around, shut the door, fished her cellphone out of her purse, and called her brother. "Danny—" She explained everything.

"Are you sure, Gracie?" he asked, when she told him she wanted him to turn around. "Because I—."

"Yes, Danny, I am. I'll have all kinds of help. This—this special escort, and everything." Danny was closest to her in age of all her brothers; only thirteen months older. She could feel her throat growing thick with tears. "I'll call you when I can. I don't know where they'll be taking me. I love you, you know? And tell—Pass that along to the rest of them, okay?" She hung up before he could reply, and wiped her face. _I'm afraid._

She could imagine the mob swarming over any car, any vehicle that tried to drive out of there with her inside, rocking the car until it tipped over. She could see the glass breaking in her mind's eye, see herself pulled out, and then…

_There will be no future. Not for me. Not for the baby._

"What's going to happen to me? What should I do?" She pulled out her little lion, hoping for something—anything.

"Fly the friendly skies." it advised her.

She looked at it for a moment. _I don't think it can be doing commercial endorsements for an airline, so it's being cryptic. I hope I understand when the time comes. I wish I could just leap up into the sky and fly away from here. Some mutants can fly, but I don't seem to have _that_ power, damn it. Did I **have** to get voices in my head? Voices with a sense of humor? _She stuffed the lion back in her pocket, and went upstairs.

Up on the third floor, Eleanor was surveying the workrooms. "I have to hand it to you, Grace. Even though you told me this level was untouched, I thought this would be the worst of it. But ninety percent of this is ready to go right out the door!"

"Years of the craft-show circuit. I hate scrambling to get it all together at the last minute, so I keep things organized. My biggest concern is the computer. Of course I threw out the original boxes and packing material just last week."

"Isn't that how it always is?" Eleanor said. "But you have all this yarn, so if you put plenty of yarn around the computer in a box, it should be safe enough."

"Good idea."

The worst of it was over. Several of the police officers pitched in to carry sweater boxes and bins down to the first floor, until at last Grace was left to pack her DVD collection in a crate. "Eleanor? Of all the things I have to thank you for, I want to thank you most of all for never once saying 'Everything happens for a reason.'"

"You don't have to thank me for that. As it happens, I do believe it, but in this case I think the answer is that the human race has far too many prejudiced fools in it. What is that noise I hear?"

There was indeed a roaring sound echoing through the room.

"Ma'am?' The police chief appeared on the stairs. "Your special escort's here. Look out the window."

Grace went to the front window, just in time to see a jet like a piece of sculpted night make a vertical landing in the parking lot. "Told ya." chirped the lion from her pocket.

"Who are they?" she asked, as a ramp came down, and several people in dark jumpsuits stepped out—followed by a man in a wheelchair. A _bald_ man in a wheelchair.

_All right. There's my 'Bald guy on wheels'.

* * *

_

Charles Xavier maneuvered his chair into the townhouse, and stopped in the hallway, which was crammed with sturdy plastic containers and boxes.

"What is all of this?" Scott asked, looking around.

"Wool, mostly." said Wolverine. "A lotta different kinds." He tapped his nose. "I can smell it."

"It's my work." a woman said. Xavier looked toward the stairs, where a woman stood on the landing. He recognized Grace Engstrom from the videos—the photographs had done her little justice. She had elegant bone structure and enormous dark eyes, although the strain of recent events made her look gaunt and haunted, with purplish shadows under those eyes. "I'm a professional knitwear designer."

"Ms. Engstrom. Hello. I'm Charles Xavier. I'm sorry we aren't meeting under more pleasant circumstances."

"So am I." She came forward, extending her hand. He took it.

"Let me perform the introductions. This is Doctor Jean Grey, and that's Scott Summers. Next to him is Ororo Munro, and over there is Logan." She murmured a hello and shook hands all around.

"Logan—?" She made the usual assumption—that some other name would follow.

"Just Logan." said that individual, curtly.

"I'm very glad to meet you all." She said it automatically, then sighed. "Well—what now?"

"Now?" Xavier reached for her mind with his own, brushing against intense emotional turmoil, a roil so strong it blocked any possibility of reading her thoughts. "It seems as if you have a lot of luggage here. Why don't you and I get better acquainted—that is, if my staff will be kind enough to move these aboard our aircraft."

"There's an awful lot of it. I just didn't know—." Grace began.

"I believe we can accommodate it, if you want to bring it along. It may be that your stay with us will be of some length, and I hope you might find some measure of contentment while you are there."

"It would help, having my work at hand—and I have several important commissions to work on." she admitted.

"We'll load it up." Jean volunteered, and took up a box. Scott followed suit.

"Yeah, okay." Logan opened the nearest box, and took out a sweater. "What does one of these sell for?" he asked.

"Logan, don't be rude." chided Storm.

"That one? Five hundred dollars." Grace Engstrom replied.

"Five hundred—? What makes this worth so much more than something you'd get at a—a Wal-Mart for forty bucks?" he asked, shaking his head.

"I suppose it's like the difference between a 'Holiday Feast' frozen TV dinner and a fresh hot turkey with all the trimmings, made at home by a very good cook." Grace rubbed her eyes.

"Huh." Wolverine considered. "Okay, I can see that." He put the sweater away again, fairly neatly, picked up the box, and exited.

"Is there somewhere we might talk?" the professor prompted. "I'm sure you'll feel better for knowing where you're going."

"I _would_ like to know where I'm going. I truly would, and not just in a traveling sense. I think the dining room is the least destroyed of all the rooms on this level." She led him to a room with a wall that was entirely window; it looked out into a wooded area.

"A very peaceful view." He commented.

"Yes, it was one of the reasons I bought this house."

She uprighted a chair for herself, but as he tried to pull up to the table, his chair halted with a bump. "Excuse me, but I seem to be stuck on something."

"Oh!" She swooped down to free him, and set the offending object on the table. It was an antique brass bookend, a design he had seen before; a thoughtful-looking monkey in a chair, reading a book inscribed 'Darwin'.

It made him smile. "I like the eyeglasses on the monkey. That's a whimsical touch I haven't seen before."

"He is unique, isn't he? I've had him for years." Her eyes flicked to the bookend, in an oddly familiar way.

_Strange_, thought the professor, and began, "As I said, my name is Charles Xavier, and I'm the headmaster of a school in upper state New York, Xavier's School for the Gifted. 'Gifted', in this case, means not only academically, but genetically. Everyone there, my students, my staff, and myself—all of us are mutants. You will be among others like yourself, those who will understand and respect you."

That made her smile wryly, and he caught a scrap of her thoughts. _'Just have to wait and see about that. I might be too weird even for them._'

He didn't comment. She was under enough stress without knowing he could read her thoughts—at least some of them. Although she was calmer now, her mind was still difficult to comprehend, as if she were a radio station just out of range—the signals distorted and blocked with interference. "The school is located on my family's private estate. The house is large, and the grounds, spacious. Our security is excellent. You will be welcome there as long as you need a safe, secure environment.

"I might add also that Jean is hoping you will remain with us through the duration of your pregnancy, and for the birth. She is a medical doctor, and both as a doctor and as a possible future mother, she wants very much to be of help to you."

"That's very kind of her. May I ask what your power is?"

"Of course. I'm telepathic. While that does mean I can read minds, I respect the privacy and individuality of others." Her eyes flicked to the monkey bookend again, almost as if it were a person at the table with them, someone who had made a comment. _Very odd indeed, _he thought. "Please, ask whatever questions you might have. I will do my best to answer them."

"Thank you." she said, and her eyes went to the monkey again. "I do have a lot of questions to ask, and I need someone I can talk to about—something that's bothering me. You might be that person. I hope you are."

"I will do my best", he replied, wondering what she would say.

"All right." She took a deep breath. "Yesterday, I found out I was pregnant, and a mutant, at practically the same moment. It's hard to say which was the greater shock, especially considering I'm forty-seven."

"How so? Not finding out you're a mutant, I mean, forgive me, but—?"

"That I'm pregnant? With my history, it was a surprise. A happy surprise, but an enormous one. My husband—ex-husband now—and I first started trying to have a family twenty years ago. We tried and failed, despite the aid of medical science and reproductive technology of all kinds, for eight years. That was when we divorced. He found someone who could have children."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's all right. I've had bigger problems since then." She glanced around her ruined room, as if to make the point. "Anyhow, after two years or so of being single, I met someone, and I lived with him until I got sick of the sound of his breathing, which took five years. We didn't use birth control, and if I had gotten pregnant, I would have been ecstatic. But I didn't.

"A year or two after that, I met—my biggest mistake. He was seven years younger than I. He wanted to take me to Hawaii, and we went. I didn't find out until we'd been there four days that he'd been using my credit cards to pay for everything. It wasn't that he didn't have a job. He just… The way I found out was after his arrest on our fourth day there. He was in a 'massage parlor' when the police raided it, and he was caught with his 'masseuse'— a thirteen-year-old Filipino girl."

"Oh." said Xavier. "That's terrible."

"Yes. It was, all around. Worst day of my life, up until yesterday. He called me and begged me to come make bail, swearing all the lies he could. He was a writer, you see, so he said he just went in to do research, never touched her, and so on. I doubted that, but I went. He was with me, after all.

"When I got to the bail bondsman with my cards, I pulled out the one I used the least. It wouldn't go through, and I called the card company. That was how I found out. My revenge was that I abandoned him.

"I went back to the hotel and checked out. On my way to the airport, I stopped at a thrift store to donate his luggage and everything in it—everything he had with him. Then I cashed in his airline ticket and flew home immediately—or as close to immediately as the airlines could manage. He called me once after that. I told him the only reason I wasn't pressing charges was because I wanted to pretend he never existed in the first place, and going to court would interfere with it. And that if I ever saw his face again, he would be going home with some of his teeth in a brown paper bag. But I didn't get pregnant."

She put her head in her hands, and spoke to the table. "Then, about two and a half months ago—I—I—I don't know you well enough to talk to you about that yet. I'm sorry. I don't usually confide my romantic history to someone I've just met, but I'm trying to work my way up to talking about what's bothering me most." She sat up and looked at him again.

"It's quite all right—although I am wondering what could be harder for you to talk about than your Hawaiian misadventure."

She laughed a little at that. "He was my only true romantic disaster. Poor judgment on my part. Yesterday, after my doctor told me I was pregnant, he told me I was a mutant. He seems to think I'm aging too slowly."

"If I may offer an opinion—if you had been pointed out to me at a social function by someone who said, 'That's Grace Engstrom. How old would you say she is, and what does she do for a living?', I would have replied, 'She's in her forties, and she's an actress.'"

"I don't mind being in my forties. I love it. I feel more confident in myself and comfortable in my skin than ever. I don't even mind people looking at me and guessing my age correctly. Ann Arbor is a university town, and undergraduate boys still sometimes walk into things because they're looking at me instead of where they're going, so I know I still have 'it'. I like to be noticed and admired, and I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. I know it's vain of me."

"I would say it was only human of you. What I meant was that while you are beautiful, you don't look young. You look as though you put a lot of effort and a lot of money into staying as you are, however."

"Um. I don't. Except for my hair. I spend about four hundred dollars a month to keep it looking good. No plastic surgery, no personal trainers, no dermatologists. And I never thought anything of it—until yesterday. To tell you the truth, when I look in the mirror, I see the lines that don't go away, the lines that weren't there ten years ago. I don't see the lines that aren't there."

"Again, human. However, I think we might have strayed from the topic at hand."

"Yes, and I sound like the most narcissistic—Anyhow, what I was going to say, was that if that—extended youth—is my mutation, is it possible to have more than one?"

"Absolutely."

"And is it possible that, just like I'm pregnant now, could I have mental powers of some kind that are only developing now? I thought mutations expressed themselves before you were twenty."

"It would be most unusual. I take it you are experiencing some mental effect you never did before."

"Yes." She glanced at the monkey again. "I was wondering if it might be the baby, affecting me."

"If you are correct that you conceived about nine or ten weeks ago, then it's not very likely. At least not directly, for a fetus does not begin to produce brainwaves until about the twenty-fourth week of gestation. Even if your child was developing more quickly due to a mutation, you would now look as though you were in that stage of development, because brain function is a matter of brain size and complexity. Without brainwaves, there can be no mental powers."

"I understand. But you said 'directly'. Is there an indirect way?"

"There could be. Most mutants develop their powers during their teen years because they are producing the hormones which activate those centers of their brains—but pregnancy produces hormones as well, hormones which are unique to that condition."

He recalled his studies. "Human chorionic gonadotrophin, for example, which is responsible for morning sickness, as well as other things. Or human placental lactrogen, which is a group of hormones responsible for the enlargement of the mammary glands in preparation for eventual breast feeding. It could well be that your power, whatever it might be, was lying dormant in you until the hormones of pregnancy activated it. What causes you to suspect you have a power developing?"

At that moment, he received a mental message from Jean. 'Professor? Two things have just happened. They've just announced that the man in the hospital has died. The crowd is getting ugly, and they may cross the property line at any moment.'

_'Then we have to move. Are we ready?_' he responded.

'Yes, but that was only the first thing.'

_'What is the second?_'

'Magneto and the Brotherhood are here.'


	9. Lucy?

Charles Xavier reached out with his mind, hunting for Erik Lensherr, or for those around him, for Magneto's helm blocked all psychic powers.

"Might my power—if it is a power—go away after I have the baby, and my hormones get back to normal?" Grace Engstrom asked. "I'm not sure whether that would be good or bad, at this point."

"It's unlikely. Hormones act as a trigger for development and growth. They're not like a fuel, something that's needed to keep powers active. Forgive me, but Jean has just communicated some news, and I must concentrate on her for the moment."

_'Jean, may I use your eyes?_'

'Of course, Professor.'

"What do you want, Magneto?" asked Storm.

The professor saw Magneto through Jean's eyes. His old friend removed his helmet and put it under his arm, and made an open, sweeping gesture with the other hand. "I am here under a flag of truce. I have come to talk, nothing more."

"That buzz saw brigade you have whizzing around the perimeter of this property says otherwise, Magneto." stated Scott.

Jean turned her head, so the Professor could see—and hear—the shining discs of metal which cut arcs through the air and sent bits of twig, leaf, and debris flying.

"They must be held back somehow. Don't worry—it shan't be for long. The humans out there will be perfectly safe as long as they don't do anything stupid, such as try to go through my barrier. That is the Engstrom house, I take it."

"What about your dogs? Are they here to talk, as well?" Logan gestured belligerently at the Toad, Sabertooth, Mystique, and Callisto.

"They are here to make the numbers closer to even. Charles has you; I have them. Are you there, Charles?"

_'Yes,_' the Professor said, speaking directly to the other man. _'What is it you want?_'

"As I said, to talk."

_'Very well, then. You may come in—alone_.'

"_Thank_ you, Charles." There was a distinct hint of good cheer in Lensherr's voice.

Xavier watched through Jean's eyes as Magneto crossed the parking lot and went up the front walk. Before he reached the door, the Professor saw him lift the helmet, the surface suddenly mirror-polished, and—check his hair?

_'Erik, what is this about?_'

"I never said I came to talk to you, Charles." replied his old friend and his best enemy.

Magneto knocked, and Xavier withdrew his consciousness into himself once more, to listen as a policeman opened the door.

"Ma'am?" the policeman came into the dining room, puzzled. "There's someone here who says he's come to see you—."

Magneto had not waited for permission. He was only a step behind the officer. "Hello, Lucy." His voice had a tenderness and warmth in it that Xavier had never heard before.

_I don't believe it_. _He knows her, she's pregnant and_— thought the Professor. _Lucy?_

_ I believe I'm going to enjoy this._

If the sudden appearance of Erik Lensherr had shocked Charles Xavier, it was as nothing to the effect it had on Grace Engstrom. "Erik!" Warm color flooded her face as she stood, holding on to the edge of the table for support.

"To those who are closest to me, yes, To the rest of the world, I am—Magneto." He set his helmet down on the table with a flourish.

Grace Engstrom's eyes went to the helmet—and then straight to the monkey bookend. Her brow creased. _It's as if she were reacting to something it said, _the professor thought. _Yes. It's exactly as if she were reacting to something it said._

"Might we have a moment alone, Charles?" asked Magneto, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Just a second!" Grace jumped in, holding up a hand to stall Xavier's withdrawal from the scene. "I'm very glad to see you, and I want to talk to you alone, too, but I spent fifteen minutes working my way up to telling Mr.—Professor Xavier something absolutely crucial. Erik, you'd probably better stay for this. Professor, yesterday morning, when I was just leaving here to go to the doctor, I started seeing and hearing things."

"What sorts of things?" Xavier asked. "Coming into your powers can be distressing, even traumatic, I know, but I—we—will do our best to help you through this."

"Powers?" Erik asked.

_One can almost see Erik's ears perk up at the word_. thought the professor.

"Grace—." Magneto began.

"Here's where the problem is." she said. "I don't know how to explain this without sounding like I've lost my mind. And I'm not so sure I haven't."

She took something from her pocket, and set it on the table next to the monkey bookend. It was a plastic toy lion, no more than a couple of inches tall and three inches long. She pointed at the objects.

"Them. I've been seeing them move, and hearing them talk. Them, and others like them. In my head. They've been telling me to do things."

"That's—not like any mutant power I've ever heard of." frowned Magneto. He picked up the lion, and examined it closely.

"What sorts of things have they been telling you to do?" the Professor asked. "Have they been asking you to hurt yourself—or others?"

"It's possible they're working up to that, but I doubt it. So far, they've been trying to keep me out of trouble, or" she gestured around her ruined house, "failing that, to keep me alive. Although, to be quite frank, it would help if they were less cryptic and gave me more specifics to work with."

She held out her hand for the lion; Erik gave it to her. "Use names," she told it, bringing it close to her eyes, and leveling a stern finger at it. "Don't say 'Magnetic', or 'The bald guy on wheels'. The pack of you seem to know everything that's happening or about to happen, so a few proper names shouldn't be that much of a stretch." Her voice vibrated with frustration. She sounded ready to bite off the toy's head—and start chewing.

"Charles?" Erik asked him, as they exchanged glances.

"I've never encountered anything like this before either. Ms. Engstrom, how have they been trying to keep you out of trouble?"

"It began when…" She explained at length and in detail, up to the point where the lamb had told her to ask for her file, and then "'Give it to the bald guy on wheels.' After the flashlight saved my life, I decided to listen to them and do whatever they said—if I can figure out what they want. They seem to enjoy confusing and exasperating me—and they try to provoke me into answering them in public, which could only lead to trouble. Here, let me get my file." She left the room for a moment.

"Nine or ten weeks ago?" Xavier raised an eyebrow at Magneto.

"Yes, as it happens. In Australia. Did she—?"

"She named no names. If it is so, have you considered what you're going to tell Pietro and Wanda?"

"I haven't the foggiest—although 'At least she's older than you are' springs to mind…"

* * *

A/N: If anyone out there doesn't know, Pietro and Wanda are Magneto's adult children from his marriage to Magda, who is dead.


	10. Why him?

_Erik…is Magneto. I know I should be upset about that, but somehow I can't quite manage it. At least not right now. Maybe later,_ Grace thought. The medical file was under her purse, on the kitchen counter, and the lamb toy sat atop the two items. "He's got the wrong idea." the lamb said, cocking its head to one side.

"Which 'he' do you mean?" she asked it. _I could care less what the police officer outside thinks, if he can hear me. Soon I'll be out of here. _

The lamb, not surprisingly, didn't answer. She brought it and the file back to the dining room. "This is the one who told me to take the flashlight with me last night, and to give you my file once I got it." She handed the file to Xavier and added the lamb to the line-up on the table.

"Ms. Engstrom, I believe your power may be a form of precognition—you are recalling future events before they happen, but your brain is interpreting those events eccentrically." stated the professor.

"Uh-uh." The lion shook its mane no.

"That is not how it works." The monkey licked his finger and turned the page of his book, not even bothering to look up.

"He's got the wrong idea." repeated the lamb.

"I'm sorry, Professor, but all three of them disagree with you." Grace told him.

"They do?" Xavier asked.

"They spoke to you just now?" said Erik at the same time.

"Yes to both questions. Look," she addressed the animals, "Why don't you speak to them, just once? It would make me feel so much better. Please?"

The monkey, lamb and lion looked up at her, then at each other, and back up at her, shaking their heads in unison. _Why did I even ask?_

"They refuse to speak to you. I've asked them who or what they are, and they won't tell me that either."

"Interesting." The professor reached out and picked up the lamb, turning it over in his hands. "This is nothing more or less than it appears to be. I caught no whisper of thought from it. Once we reach the school, Ms. Engstrom, there are some tests we can perform which may shed some light on the matter."

"Before anyone goes anywhere, I would still appreciate those few words in private. Charles, do you mind?" Erik looked pointedly at his friend.

Grace looked at Erik. "If you go down that way, there's a patio outside the kitchen door that should be accessible." she suggested to the professor. She watched as Xavier disappeared out the door, and then turned to meet Erik's eyes._ Why? Why him?_ _There's no point in wondering if I'm going to have a relationship with him. I already do. We made a child together. That's an unbreakable bond. No matter what else comes of it, he is and will always be the father. Any thing more—I don't know._

_Magneto was nothing to me—a stern voice coming from an odd helmet on the evening news._ "Erik—." She began.

"Grace, as sorry as I am that all this should have happened, I'm glad of this—it has brought us together again. Almost from the moment the door closed behind you, I have regretted it."

He took a step forward, and it was too much for her. She shut her eyes and started to cry. _Why him? He's at least twenty years older than I am, and I'm not sure he could have been called handsome even when he was young. And everything he's done—that business at the Statue of Liberty, the prison break and the people he killed there—why him?_ But his arms were around her, and her face nestled into his neck, his shaved skin slightly rough against her forehead. _Why do I feel more for him than I ever have for anyone else in my life?_

"There, my dear." He held her, stroked her shoulder, kissed her temple as chastely as a father might. "While I live they will not touch you." He lifted her chin and kissed her on the mouth.

That kiss was not chaste. Although it was wet and salty with her tears, all the heat which had surfaced as they danced together in the Australian night was there between them still.

_And I had thought the waltz was stuffy and dignified. It always was before, but his hand was there on my back and mine was on his shoulder and I couldn't think about anything else._

He broke their contact after a long moment, and breathed the word, "Yes," in a husky whisper. His eyes were as blue-grey as a winter sky. _This feels like home—here, with him. Home isn't only a place. It's a person. Or people…_

As if he, too, could read minds, he reached out and touched the delicate curve of her belly, just below the waist. "Is it mine?" he asked, his voice full of such gladness and hope that she nearly broke into tears again.

She was about to answer him when the lion's voice cut through the rosy haze. "A word of advice: Look out the window."

She did, and what she saw affected her like a handful of loose snow down the back of her neck.

Outside her dining room window, in the woods where she sometimes saw deer grazing or chickadees hopping around, was a woman with skin like rough lapis lazuli, yellow owl's eyes, and in those eyes was a look Grace knew too well.

_**I** looked at Stephanie like that. Pretty, silly, fluffy Stephanie, pregnant with my husband's child, the child that should have been mine._

She stepped back, out of Erik's embrace. He looked almost comically bewildered, until she said, with almost clinical detachment. "I thought you might be married, but I never imagined she would look like that."

His head snapped around to look where she was looking, and his face contorted into barely restrained fury. He made a sweeping, dismissive gesture at the woman, who flipped him the finger in return and stalked off like an offended cat.

"She is not my wife. I have been a widower for many years. Her name is Mystique, and the tie that bound us—was only a slipknot, made to come apart easily. Believe me when I tell you she slipped far more often than I."

He stepped forward again, trying to recapture the moment, but it was too late. Grace moved closer to the window, looking for Mystique. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone stranger-looking—or more beautiful." _And she looked as though she'd gladly rip my baby out, placenta and all, with her bare hands. _

"I am sorry to interrupt." Charles Xavier's voice floated in from the direction of the kitchen. "but in our absence, the truce outside seems to have dissolved." A great thump shook the house, rattling the windows."

"Damnation!" swore Erik, who gestured, and the front door flew open. "Can I not take my eyes off you for five minutes?" he shouted out at the combatants.


	11. Grand Theft Auto

_Is there no privacy to be had around here? First Mystique, now Charles, and whatever nonsense is going on—._ Sabertooth and Wolverine were at each others throats, of course, that was what he saw first. They were easily dealt with; one thought and Wolverine was suspended safely out of reach. "What did I tell you?" he asked Sabertooth.

"Didn't start it." rasped his cohort.

"I don't care." Suddenly Erik became aware that the focus of attention had shifted—to somewhere behind and to the right of him. He turned to see—Grace. Or a coarse caricature of her, her features turned hard, her humor transformed to cruelty. She was exaggeratedly pregnant, her belly a bloated mountain, her breasts massive and pendulous.

"Mystique." he hissed, trying to put all the menace into her name that he could. _If Grace sees her, the chances of seeing my child before it turns eighteen are essentially nil, and mutantkind will pass the way of the passenger pigeon—extinct. _His expression must have been enough to cow her, for she morphed back into herself.

He heard Xavier's chair behind him, and the telepath said, "It's obvious matters are far too complicated to resolve here and now. Erik, I propose we extend the truce and relocate to my school, where we can discuss matters at our leisure."

"I accept." Erik said. "Furthermore, I suggest that we both leave our troublemakers here to make their own way home." He grinned at the three instigators.

"That seems fitting." the Professor agreed.

"You gotta be kidding." protested Logan.

"Look on the bright side, Logan—this way you can smoke on the way back. You know you can't light up around a pregnant woman," Scott jibed.

"I'm ready. Eleanor, thank you so much. I'll call you." Grace appeared in the doorway, two bags over one shoulder . She hugged an older woman, who did a double-take at the sight of him and looked significantly at her friend. _Hmmm. A confidant, perhaps? Women tell each other things men would never dream of._

Grace looked back and forth between the X-men and Erik for a moment, then went after Xavier's group. She cast a long look at him back over her shoulder. _Soon, my dear, soon_.

He turned to his group as the jet's ramp pulled up and the hatch closed. "All right. Sabertooth, start walking."

"Hey! What about me?" Wolverine waved from his vantage point in mid-air.

"Oh, yes. I'm going to give you a head start." Using his powers, Magneto threw him in the direction of Lake Michigan, in a long, high arc. _That won't hurt him—not permanently, at any rate._

He turned to Mystique. "I'm sorry that it must come to this, but you would be wise to remove all traces of yourself from my fortress before I return there."

"Out with the old and in with the new, is that it? Erik, I hope she is your 'Maeve', I truly do. You'll have every mutant in the world burning candles in front of her picture, right beside yours, if she is, I know it. More, I hope she's everything you could want or need. And then I hope she breaks your damned heart worse than Magda did."

"If you get going now, I'm sure you could catch up with Sabertooth. Perhaps you could make another Sapient baby." he replied.

_If her eyes had powers like Cyclops', I would have a large gaping wound in me right now_. he thought, but she turned and went.

He recalled his helmet, and brought it gliding out of the house to his hand. Turning to the Toad and Callisto, he told them, "We are going to Xavier's estate. Let me make myself abundantly clear. You will be on your best behavior, or I shall turn you over to the humans for test subjects. Do you understand?"

They nodded. "Good. Go ahead; I'll be there in a moment." _The Lexus must be Grace's—the decal of a ball of yarn with two knitting needles through it is a dead giveaway_. _No sense in leaving it for the mob to destroy. _The lock turned at a thought, and he checked the registration. It was hers. _Shoddy fiberglass body. Modern cars._

There was enough metal in it for him to bring it along, however. Thus did Magneto perpetrate one of the oddest cases of Grand Theft Auto in the history of stolen cars.

Once he and his abbreviated Brotherhood were on their way, he inquired of Callisto, "What did you make of Ms. Engstrom?"

"She's a level four, solid. She has a healing factor, nothing like as strong as Wolverine's, maybe a tenth of what he has. There's something going on in her brain that's like telepathy, but that isn't what it is. I don't know what to call it, I don't have the right words. She's got a whole set of powers that are just waiting, still, and I don't know what they are, either, but I think—I think they have to do with being pregnant."

"With being pregnant…" _She is 'Maeve'. She is. Mutantkind will have a future_.

"Is what Mystique was getting at true? Did you knock her up?" Callisto asked.

"First of all, you will never—and I mean _never_—use such vulgarity in connection with Ms. Engstrom again. Someday you may understand why. If anyone else in the Brotherhood does so, I will expect you to correct them in my absence. That having been said, it is none of your business." _Which, of course, she will read as 'Yes.'_

Her face contorted into a dubious grimace. "What on earth does that face mean?"

"Eeeew." escaped her lips.

"Further vulgarity." He transfixed her with a stare. "Believe it or not, it is possible for people my age to have sex and even enjoy it."

She winced; he continued, pleasantly. "Despite what people of your age would like to think, your parents' generation did not invent sex on their wedding nights, and engage in it only once, with extreme distaste, for each child in the family."

He was really enjoying her discomfiture; young people were quite amusingly puritanical when it came to their elders. "Nor is your generation the first one to fully explore sex's potential as a recreational, as opposed to procreational, activity, or all of the exciting variations which are possible. Someday you will be my age, and you will be explaining this to someone of your age, who will have just as horrified and nauseated an expression as the one you're wearing now."

His good mood restored, Erik sat back to enjoy the flight.


	12. Connections

_Erik may have bitten off more than he can chew with this one_, thought Charles Xavier with amusement. _He might be able to persuade impressionable teenagers and estranged, hurting outcasts with phrases like 'You are a god among insects', but Grace Engstrom will know better._

She had spent the entire flight thus far talking, not to her inner voices, but to everyone on her speed-dial. Beginning with her brothers—she apparently had three, all of them older—and going on to friends, she was now calling business associates such as her publisher and her agent. Most of the conversations began with a statement such as 'For heaven's sake, it's not as though I sprouted another head! I'm exactly the same person I was two days ago, before I found out I was a mutant.'

Of those conversations, about one in every four was very short, ending with 'I'm sorry you feel that way. I wish you well.'—where it was clear the person on the other could not accept the change in Grace's status, from human to mutant. Grace Engstrom was doing well above the usual as far as relationships went, if three-quarters of the people she knew well did not automatically reject her.

_It comes of learning this in adulthood—she has had thirty more years to build a network of people in her life. Most mutants learn what they are at a time when they have outgrown the protection of childhood, such as it is, when they feel most alone and alienated from their family and society, and before they have had a chance to build stable connections as adults. They are at their most vulnerable, when they do not know themselves, let alone others._

Right now she was speaking to her agent. "Patty, if I don't get paid, you don't get paid. There was no clause in that contract that said 'the publisher agrees to pay one thousand dollars for each original pattern used, unless the designer turns out to be a mutant'! You're a lawyer. Take them to court… Yes, I know. If they refuse to print what they contracted for, they owe me a kill fee. Point out that all four of my books just jumped to the top 100 best sellers on Amazon's list. Even if they're buying them just to burn them, they're still buying them. All right. You take care. I'll call you."

She was also knitting the whole time she was on the phone. Feeling his eyes upon her, Grace smiled at him, and explained, "I'm not giving up without a fight. If I never get another contract, I'll need the money more than ever from these now."

"I understand. I admire your spirit."

Her smile was wry. "Thank you. It's much easier to deal with people than it is to deal with my voices. Excuse me; I've got a few more calls to make."

"Of course."

She pressed a few more buttons on her phone. "Jess—it's me. Aunt Grace. What? Look, Jess—I'm still your aunt. I bought you your first bra when your mother said you were still too young, we make Rice Krispy treats every time you come over, and nothing's going to change that… I'm going to be your aunt whether—. All right, it doesn't matter if you call me a freak, I still love you. I don't need your permission to love you, that's the advantage of being an aunt. Why don't you call your dad and talk—." Grace Engstrom looked at the phone with dismay. "She hung up."

"I think you're handling matters very well." Xavier told her. "While you might regret trying to keep a relationship—you will always regret not trying."

"Thank you." This smile was more genuine. She went back to her phone calls.

'Professor?' came Jean's mental voice in his mind. 'I've been thinking. If she and Magneto have a relationship, why are we still involved here? Especially if it's as intimate as Mystique implied.'

_'You think that if Ms. Engstrom is going to be the mother of his child, she should be his responsibility?'_

'Something like that, yes.'

_'Whatever relationship they have, he hasn't been honest with her, Jean. She was genuinely shocked to discover the man she was involved with was Magneto. She knew only a man named Erik. What sort of relationship does that imply? Can she trust in it? Whether he is the father of her child or not doesn't matter._'

'Still—.' Jean began.

_'Jean, had you never met Scott, might you have acted on your attraction to Logan?'_

'Maybe.'

_'Even though you believe he would prove unreliable, or that your relationship would lead you places you did not want to go? Be honest with yourself, Jean. If you found yourself in her predicament, would you not hope to find friends among strangers, that your child might have a more stable, more reliable home than that which he could provide?_'

'…yes.'

_'Try to befriend her, Jean. Do your best. Her powers are developing, and they are such that until and unless she can get control of them, she is liable to alienate even other mutants, let alone humans._'

'Why? What are they?'

_'I'm not sure. She is seeing and hearing very strange things. I think she is perceiving the future in an unusual way. She—or rather, her voices—disagree. If it is a form of precognition, that is one thing. But if she is correct—if she is receiving messages from some outside source—that is a matter for great concern. In that case, she is being manipulated. In the meantime, when she interacts with her visions, she will appear to the casual observer to be mentally ill. Even when one knows what is going on, it is…disconcerting. I fear our people will shun her.'_

'I won't. For your sake, and because of what you said.'

_'Thank you, Jean._'

'You're welcome, Professor.'


	13. Trust Communication

"Ms. Engstrom, considering the day and night you've experienced, I would like Dr. Grey to look you over before anything else. She will also affix several remote sensor discs to your temples and forehead—they're no larger than a dime. They will monitor your brain activity, much like an EEG machine does, but these are calibrated somewhat differently. It won't hurt. Since your voices seem to be unpredictable, it hardly makes sense to sit in the infirmary and wait for them. This way, whenever or wherever they might speak to you, we'll have a record of what happens." said Professor Xavier.

Grace tore her attention away from the milling students to look at him. "All right." There were so many of them, and all mutants…

"In the meantime, Erik and I will be in my office. Jean, you'll show her how to find it, won't you?" Xavier turned to look at his former student.

"No problem." smiled the doctor.

"If that's where I'm going, may I ask you to take the lamb and monkey with you? I'll hang on to my lion, in case the universe has a message for me in the meantime." She opened her knitting bag and showed them the two objects.

"I will take the monkey," Erik offered, and called it to his hand.

"Is it beneath your dignity to walk through the halls of my school with a stuffed toy under your arm? I have no such shame. I will take the lamb, and gladly." said the Professor. "We'll see you later." The two men went off down the hall.

"Smart move," offered the lion.

"Thank you." she told it, but Dr Grey, who was a cherry-soda redhead, thought Grace was speaking to her.

"That's quite all right. Believe it or not, when it comes to your pregnancy, I'm as interested in it as you are." They went in the direction of the infirmary.

* * *

The house was much as Erik remembered it; only noisier and somewhat battered around the corners. A stream of students poured from a classroom and rushed straight towards them, the current parting to surge around them like a river flowing around rocks. His presence made them gasp, point their fingers, and whisper excitedly to one another.

"Can your staff not maintain some sort of order around here? So much noise and disorder must be trying." Erik commented.

"Noise and disorder go along with youth, Erik, and they must find an outlet somewhere. What you see as a lack of discipline, I see as high spirits. Here we are—the same old office."

"I remember it well," said Magneto, looking around the room. It was bright, spacious and airy. Apparently it also served as an informal classroom; there were teaching materials and educational toys scattered around the room. "I'll just put the monkey on your desk for now."

"Would you be so kind as to put the lamb with him?" Xavier asked, holding out the toy. Erik did so, and took a seat.

"Well, Erik?" Xavier steepled his fingers and looked over them at Magneto.

"'Well' what?"

"Ms. Engstrom."

"She and I had only a moment alone before the world intruded, and she was too upset to talk immediately. We barely exchanged half a dozen words before we were interrupted." The thought of their reunion, her warm, salty mouth, and the unspoken promise in that kiss made him smile.

"Did she confirm your suspicion that you are the father?"

"Not in so many words, no. Her expression was most eloquent, however. I am fairly certain the answer is yes." _Her eyes said it, even if her lips did not—and then she felt Mystique's stare. _

"If you have managed to father the first mutant child of two mutant parents, you're going to be insufferable, aren't you?"

" 'Going to be insufferable'? I was under the impression I already was." Magneto smiled.

"I'm sure you can achieve even greater heights of self-satisfaction. Let me be plainer, then. We were asked to provide Ms. Engstrom safe escort here, which we did, and to offer her safe haven here for as long as she might need or want it. However, she is free to stay or go as she pleases. What do you intend by her?"

"I shall likewise open my home to her, and on terms of rather higher status than you offer. I have more than one reason to believe she will accept."

"Despite the fleeting and transitory nature of your relationship heretofore?" Xavier fixed him with a penetrating stare.

"Dear me, Charles. Have you stooped to reading thoughts without permission?" Acid sarcasm etched his words in the air. _Of all memories which are private, those are the most private of all._

"Not at all. One need not read minds to read people. You were able to pinpoint Australia as the place of, ah, conception. Neither you nor she live in Australia. That suggests a short-term relationship between two wayfarers whose paths happened to cross. Hardly a foundation on which to build a life together."

_Charles is altogether too shrewd._ "If I am correct, we have already built, or rather, made a life together. A child thrives best with two parents. Although I admit our prior acquaintance was brief, the depth of our compatibility—and I am talking about much more than the mere physical—was such as one does not meet with more than once or twice in a lifetime."

"What about Mystique? Your relationship with her seemed stable."

"Yes, rocks which sit and go nowhere are very stable indeed. That is over."

"I see. What about Ms. Engstrom's powers? She will have to learn some degree of control over them—and if she is receiving messages from some unknown outside source, she will have to learn how to protect herself from them."

"Protect herself from them, when they have been doing their best to guide and protect her? However bewildering they may be, her voices clearly mean her no harm. They even told her that she might trust you." Erik pointed out.

"Will their intentions always prove so beneficial? Perhaps they are only building up her trust in preparation for some inimical deed—if indeed they do exist, and are not an invention of her mind."

Magneto was impelled to get up and pace about the office. "And what if these messages come from some power that means and does only good by her?"

"I would appreciate some proof, first of their existence, and then of their intentions before I simply let them continue to run loose through her mind."

"Perhaps this is something which must be taken on faith, Charles. It isn't very likely that a tangible proof of something as intangible as her voices would fall right into your lap—Oh!"

The 'Oh!' was because in his pacing, he had wandered into the classroom area of the office. So intent was he on their conversation that he was not paying attention to where he stepped, and he put most of his weight down on a set of wooden rollers which were hidden by a bench.

Falling backward, Erik crashed heavily against the bookshelf behind him, causing it to rock and send objects raining down around him. A marble bust of Plato narrowly missed his foot by mere inches, and a taxidermied owl seemed to take flight again briefly, before it landed on a four-foot high plastic model of the DNA spiral.

In its turn, the DNA spiral knocked over a wooden easel with a large corkboard on it, and those items fell on a table which had a stack of paper slips on it, sending the slips flying around the room like autumn leaves, aided by the cross-breeze from the open window.

None of the items were metal, meaning that Magneto had nothing to do with what happened.

The slips landed every which way, one of them lodging in the folds of Erik's jacket.

"Or then again, you might be wrong." said Professor Xavier, hesitantly.

"Wrong about what?" Magneto asked, regaining his balance.

"That proof of that sort wouldn't be likely to just fall into my lap." He held up two slips of paper, on which were written, in Xavier's own handwriting, 'Trust' and 'Communication'.

"Trust Communication," Erik said, aloud. "How many of those slips of paper were there?"

"Two dozen. It was for a writing exercise. The younger students got single words, the more advanced got entire phrases. Of course, it's entirely a coincidence—a coincidence which strains credulity, but merely a coincidence." The Professor shrugged it off.

"You think so? I received one as well, one that you'll appreciate. This will strain your credulity past the breaking point." He regarded the slip that had tucked itself into his jacket.

"Why? What does it say?"

"Make love, not war." Magneto held it out.

The two men looked at each other uneasily.

"She isn't even in the room." Xavier murmured.

"No—but they are." Erik pointed to the lamb and the monkey.

"Were they both looking in this direction when you put them down over there?" the Professor asked.

"I'm—not sure." his friend replied.

At that moment, Storm burst into the room with a loud "What's going on in here?"—and had to be persuaded that Magneto was not attacking the Professor, derailing what might have been a very interesting discussion about who or what the voices were.


	14. An Eye Opener

A/N: Hey, how about some reviews? (Thanks to those who do so regularly.) How am I doing?

* * *

"Dr. Grey? Dr. Grey! Artie's got a nosebleed and it's dripping everywhere!" Grace and Dr. Grey were theoretically on their way to the infirmary when the doctor was hijacked by a cluster of students, centered on a boy whose hands were clamped to his nose.

"Oops! I'll just be a moment." apologized the doctor, who said to the boy. "The first best thing to try for a nosebleed is to hold a big spoon against the side that's bleeding. Come on; let's go to the kitchen."

Grace was left alone, or nearly alone, in a large parlor. The mansion was elegant without being stuffy—wood paneling on the walls inside, natural stone outside. However, what concerned her most at the moment had nothing to do with the building and everything to do with the people in it. Hunched over on the hearth of the massive stone was the young man who had come with Erik, and she was having to keep herself from staring at him.

It wasn't his body language, which was Young Johnny Rotten-Punkboy, although it didn't help—a mix of misery, alienation, and sullen anger. His skin was as yellow as someone in the last stages of hepatitis, and his hair was the color of cooked spinach. His eyes were dull, and—worst of all—he had a runny nose, which he wiped periodically on his sleeve.

_I don't remember ever seeing anyone more repulsive,_ Grace thought. _The other girl with Erik's—Magneto's group, the one with more normal coloring, she looked like she was ready to rip the face off of anyone who looked at her funny. When I look at the kids here, and compare them with Erik's people—I know which group I'd rather belong to. _

_Xavier's. _

_But then there's the fact of who the father of my child is, and how I feel about him._

_I don't even know what issues are at stake here. I wish I'd paid better attention to the news. _

_I didn't realize what a complacent, uninvolved, safe, cocooned little life I've been leading, up until now. Oh, that's disgusting. He just licked his face with his tongue—eeuch!_

The Toad had indeed stuck out about eight inches of tongue, and swiped his own face with it.

"He needs a Kleenex." Above the mantelpiece of the fireplace was a portrait of someone who had to be the Professor's father or grandfather. By his feet there was a golden retriever, and it was the dog who had spoken.

"Yes, I can see that." Grace hissed. "So what?"

"So give him one. Ruff!" It had a motherly, older-woman voice. "You have some in your purse."

"I don't want to go anywhere near him. He turns my stomach!"

"Give him a Kleenex!" the dog insisted.

"I'll throw up."

"No, you won't."

_At least he's the only other person in the room, and he looks completely uninterested in what I'm seemingly saying to myself._

"No!" She had resolved to pay more attention to what the voices said, but this was something else entirely.

"What if your own child turned out even stranger-looking than he did?" the dog asked.

She glared. _They know all my buttons_. "All right. But if I throw up, I'll blame you."

"You look like you could use some of these." she said, going over to where the young man lurked. She fished around in her handbag and dug out a purse-pack of tissues.

He looked up at her, surprised. "S'okay. I'm all right." He had a heavy, lower-class British accent. His eyes were dull with illness, she realized, looking at him close up. They looked sore and swollen.

"No, I think you have a cold. Please. Take them." She reached down and pressed them into his hand. Instead of being cold and clammy, as she feared, it was hot and dry.

"He has a fever." confirmed the dog. "You've got a dose of cold medicine in a blister pack in the bottom of your purse, left over from February. Give it to him."

She glared at the painting, but she found it. "You really ought to take something for it. Here."

"Thank you." he said, shyly.

"He has to wash them down with something." prompted the dog. It wagged its tail, then scratched behind its left ear with a hind foot.

_All right, all right. Why am I having to mother this disgusting lump? _"Hey—." She flagged down a passing student, a snub-nosed boy with brown hair. "Is there a drinking fountain or a bathroom nearby?"

"Sure—the bathroom's right down the hall, second on the left." He pointed.

"If there aren't any cups, you can at least drink from your hand," she told her patient.

"All right." He looked at the foil-backed square of medicine package in his hand, and went to find the bathroom.

"Now tell me what that's all about? Are you trying to tell me Erik does a lousy job of looking after his people?" she hissed at the golden retriever.

"His mother used to put cigarettes out on him." The dog told her, and put her head down on her paws, looking soulfully at Grace in the way that only dogs could. "He learned to be afraid to ask for what he wants and needs. The ones who find their way here led almost normal lives. The other one takes the truly damaged ones."

_By 'the other one', it must mean Erik. His mother put cigarettes out on him?_ The knowledge took a moment to sink in_. That poor kid…_ She sank down in a chair by the hearth.

The yellow-skinned mutant returned. His face and some of his hair were wet—it looked as if he had made an effort to wash up. His mouth twitched in an effort at a smile. "Found it. Thanks." He returned to his seat on the hearth.

"You're welcome. It might make you drowsy. I should have told you that before."

"S'all right." He said.

"What's your name?" she asked him. _Once I look past the green and yellow, he looks to be about twenty-five or so._ _He never learned how to be a person, did he? Not from his family, anyway._

"I'm the Toad." he said, proudly.

"Well, I'm Grace. Tell me—you see, I only found out yesterday that I'm a mutant, so I know you must know a lot more than I do. Tell me, what do you see as the biggest difference between Magneto and Professor Xavier? They seem like old friends, but you—the people who follow them—don't get along at all, do you?"

He straightened up, flattered at being asked his opinion. "That's easy, see? Xavier, he's soft. He gets people killed, you know that? He'll get us all killed, wanting us to bend over for the flatlines. A flatline is anybody that isn't a mutant. Magneto, now, he's the man to stick by. You do that, and you'll come through alive." He blinked owlishly.

_Amazing._ As Grace watched, the cold medicine kicked in, and within three minutes, he went from awake to nodding to sound asleep. _Wonder why he reacted so quickly to it. Because of his mutation? I can't leave him there like that,_ she thought. Looking around the room, she took a cushion and a throw off the furniture, and made him as comfortable as she could.

_All right—that was his opinion. I should ask somebody from Xavier's side their take on the matter. _

_I used to think I was a pretty good person, as people go. Better than average, anyway. I wrote out checks to charities, made and donated items to fundraisers, and thought it was enough. I didn't vote and I didn't pay attention to the news. All the while, deadly serious things were going on around me, large and small. People were being legally harassed because of their genetic structure, and mothers were stubbing their cigarettes out on their mutant children. What was I doing about it?_

_Nothing. That was the problem._

"About time you realized that." commented the lion.


	15. Challenges

Professor Xavier and Magneto sat on opposite sides of the professor's desk, looking at all twenty-four slips of paper, and at Grace's animals.

"Tell me, old friend." Xavier broke the silence. "Why is it you seem so willing to take Ms. Engstrom's voices at face value? Why do you seem to have such a degree of trust?"

"There are too many coincidences here—far more than you know. If I am correct…It cannot be known for months, at any rate. Perhaps years. I have so often, for so many years, hoped for some sign, some portent that someone, something approved my path. I read so much into my slightest successes, straining to hear a whisper… Only it seems that when the universe has a message to get across to one, it doesn't bother to whisper. It shouts and hits one over the head with a brick."

"Erik, are you saying you believe God is speaking to Ms. Engstrom?" Xavier asked, startled and perturbed.

"Which God?" asked Magneto in return, his lips quirking. "Don't forget, I'm not a Christian, and I never was one. No, I don't believe it's God. For one thing, Grace isn't being blessed by these visitations; she's being harassed, which is wholly incompatible with the concept of God. No. I believe the future, the present, and the past—coexist in a sense, separated by no more than a breath. All those yet unborn who will owe their births, their lives, to her are reaching backward to guide her..."

"That's quite a novel theory. How many children do you expect she will have? She is starting rather late in life. The child she's carrying now may not only be her first, but also her last and only."

"That may well be so—but one might be enough." Erik picked up the three slips that had astonished them so much. "I'll make a bargain with you, Charles."

"What sort of bargain?"

"If you'll take your message to heart—I'll take mine." The master of magnetism crossed his arms and looked at Charles Xavier, the light of challenge in his eyes.

The gauntlet had been thrown. It remained to be seen whether it would be picked up.

* * *

"I can tell you that you're in excellent health, and you're definitely pregnant. All indications are that your baby is developing normally. You said the first day of your last period was at the very end of June, so you'll probably be due in the first week of April. That puts the date of conception at about the thirteenth or fourteenth of July, by the way."

Grace nodded. "That would be exactly right. Now tell me the bad news."

"The bad news—this is going to seem like a strange question, but did your tan come out of a bottle, or did you get it by laying out in the sun?" Doctor Grey looked at her sternly.

"By laying out in the sun. I've been a sun worshipper all my life."

"With sunscreen or without?"

"I use an SPF 4 these days."

"That explains a lot, because with your healing factor, you ought to look younger than you do. Yours isn't the strongest I've seen, but it is there and it's working. Internally, you're in the 16 to 30 year old range—physically mature, no signs of decrepitude—but your skin is another story. You've been taxing your healing factor's ability to repair damage. As long as it's intact and doing its job, your skin is low down on your body's fix-it-list of repairs to make. If you limit your sun-exposure, use a higher SPF, or, better still, start using the kind of tan you can buy at the drugstore, you'll get a lot more mileage out of your skin."

Grace winced. "You're the first person ever to tell me I ought to look younger than I do. Ouch."

"Hey, you asked for the bad news. You didn't tell me you wanted the sugar pills. As for the rest—you're fine. Don't take up riding broncos on the rodeo circuit or any thing stupid like that, eat a varied and balance diet, and I anticipate no heightened risk of miscarriage or other problems. However—."

_I knew there was going to be a 'however' in there_, Grace thought.

"All of that applies to a normal human mother and a normal human baby. When you're a mutant—and when your child might be one—all bets are off. I'm asking this as a doctor—is the father of your child a mutant, too?"

"Don't admit anything." admonished the lion.

"But she's a—."

"Zip your lip."

"Can I at least tell—?" _him_, she was about to say, but:

"Nope. Shut it. Nobody and nothing." The lion looked at her pointedly.

Grace turned back to Dr. Grey, who was looking at her with dismay. "My little friend here says I shouldn't tell you—or anybody else, for that matter." She smiled brightly, if a bit desperately, and held up the toy. "Did Professor Xavier tell you…?"

"He said you were seeing and hearing some very strange things, but he didn't say what. It looked as though you were having a conversation with that toy."

"I was. Sort of. Things like this started talking to me yesterday. Not constantly, or consistently, just when they want to—like when they tell me to do things, or not do things. Or when they're scolding me for not getting off my ass and making the world a better place by now."

"And do you do what they tell you?"

"Once I've figured out what they really mean. They can be unclear. I have learned that not doing it leads to serious trouble. For example, if I had not gone to my doctor yesterday, my house wouldn't have been vandalized, and I'd be at home right now."

"But if that hadn't happened, if I understand correctly, you wouldn't have found out you were a mutant, and you wouldn't know what was going on with the voices." Dr. Grey pointed out.

"I still don't know what's going on with the voices. Anyhow, he's told me not to reveal anything about the father of my child. Sorry."

"The voices haven't told you to set fire to anything or go up on a high building with a rifle, have they?" asked the doctor.

"Professor Xavier asked me a very similar question earlier today. No. On the contrary, they told me to do something about the Toad's cold. That was why you found me looking at him when you came back."

"I was wondering about that."

"I think they not only wanted him to feel better, they wanted me to start looking at people differently, starting with him. For all I know they had a third reason."

"Yours doesn't seem like a comfortable power to have. Well, if you decide to stay with us, and I hope you will, I would like to run tests and take measurements and readings once a week, at least. Even every day, as we get closer to your delivery date."

_If anything were to go wrong, she'd be able to spot it as soon as it started. Like pre-eclampsia, or if the placenta detached too soon._

"Also," continued Dr. Grey, "some hospitals won't take mutant patients, and if the baby is obviously a mutant from birth—you've seen the ugliness that can result."

"Yes. Thank you. I'll keep that in mind. Right now—I think the stress of deciding what to have for lunch would bring on a panic attack."

"I understand. I don't want you to feel pressured. Now—for the sensor dots." She produced a sheet of adhesive backed discs, and peeled them off to stick them, one by one, on various spots on Grace's forehead and skull. "Then we'll go back up to the Professor's office. Do you mind if I ask why you happened to take up knitwear design? Was it something you always knew you wanted to do?"

"No, but I figured out that was what I should be doing in college—My grandmother taught me to knit and crochet when I was eight, because I was fidgety when I didn't have something to do. I made a lot of clothes for my dolls, and then sweaters and things for myself and others. What I wanted to do was be an artist."

"A traditional artist, like with oil paints, and things?"

"Yes. I majored in art in college, and while I was good, my work didn't get the attention I wanted. I'd go to shows, and enter exhibitions, contests, and everything—only to have people come up to me wanting to buy my sweater. Sometimes I sold them right off my back. Eventually, the little light bulb came on and it dawned on me: I could either beat my head against the brick wall of fine art, and get nowhere, or I could concentrate on my knitting, where my work was really in demand. I never looked back."

"I had a look at your website this morning. Your work is amazing. That's something I wish I had—a creative talent for something. I had the calling for medicine, but it doesn't offer the freedom of expression something creative does." She affixed the last dot to the base of Grace's skull. "There—all done."

"I could teach you to knit—it's wonderfully relaxing. Dr. Grey—." They left the infirmary and went to the elevator.

"Please. Call me Jean." She pressed the button for the first floor.

"If you'll call me Grace, I will. I have a question. What would you say was the most important difference between Professor Xavier and Magneto?"

"I would say that Professor Xavier teaches, that he builds and leads. Magneto drives people. He destroys, and he manipulates. We spend a lot of time and energy making right what he's done wrong, and stopping him from doing worse."

The elevator doors opened, and they got out. Passing a window, Jean pointed out. "As an example, do you see that girl studying by the fountain, the one with the white streaks in her hair?"

"Yes. The one with the opera gloves on."

"She's Rogue. Her power is to absorb the powers and life energies of others. If you remember about the incident at the Statue of Liberty, Magneto invented a device which induced mutations in ordinary humans. The process was flawed, and it eventually killed those who it mutated. Even if it had worked perfectly, it would still have been wrong to use it as he wanted to: to make the major world leaders mutants without their consent."

"I see."

"He also had to drain himself past exhaustion to use it on one person. Using it on hundreds—even thousands, because it would have reached much of New York—would have killed him. So he kidnapped Rogue, forced his powers on her, and used her to operate the machine instead—even though she would have died in the process."

_Oh, god._

_That's what I couldn't quite remember. That's what he did that got him sent to prison._

_The father of my child is a man who would sacrifice someone else's child, cruelly and wrongly. _

_He's evil…_

"Don't turn your back on him." said the lion. It shook its head at her. "Don't. Evil is something people do; it's not something they are."

"That's easy for you to say. I think this one's too big to swallow. I'm going to choke on it." she replied.

"Don't turn your back on him. It's important. You're all in this together."

"You want me to disregard something that big?"

"It's talking to you, right?" asked Jean. "May I listen in, telepathically?"

"Sure," Grace said to her, abstractly.

"Don't disregard it. Remember it, but forgive him. You're all in this together."

**I can read you, but I can't hear a thing from it.** said Jean, from inside Grace's head.

**Is it still talking?**

"Yes, it is. What are we all in together?"

It didn't reply.

"Come on." She shook it. "I need more than that!"

It was silent.

"Great." Grace put it in her pocket. "It's being cryptic again."

"That was strange." Jean said, out loud. "I had the worst difficulty reading you, and I drew a blank on it. I think you might want to concentrate on learning to communicate with them telepathically, because you're going to give people the impression—."

"That my mind has snapped and I've regressed to childhood?"

"I'm glad you're aware it's a problem. Here we are: the Professor's office." Jean opened the door, and they went inside.


	16. Put Your Foot Down!

A/N: Thank you! Love reviews, keep them coming. J.

* * *

Professor Xavier and Magneto looked over from the desk, where they were intent on studying a computer screen. "Did your...voices speak to you, just moments ago? Possibly in three separate statements? And did Jean speak to you, also?"

"Yes. They did and she did." Grace replied.

"Of course." Erik said, with some satisfaction. "You'll want to have a look at this." She and Jean crossed the carpet to join them. Erik stepped back so she could fit in beside the Professor, and then leaned in to look over her shoulder, intimately close.

"These sensors operate rather differently from a normal EEG machine," explained the professor. "Those register five basic states of mind—alertness, rest, sleep, abstract thought, and dreaming. They map what is going on in the brain, and where. This machine measures rather more. Do you recall what the classic four elements are?"

"Earth, air, fire and water." Grace recited.

"An ordinary EEG operates on about that level of sophistication. Just as we know that our world has over a hundred elements, which in combination make up such things as earth, air and water—air being a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and traces of other gases, water being two atoms of hydrogen bonded to one of oxygen, the mind is likewise more sophisticated. This machine is calibrated to pinpoint the periodic table of thought, including the known range of mutant powers."

"You never stop teaching, do you, Charles?" chuckled Erik. He laid his hand lightly on hers, where it rested on the desk, and her pulse jumped at the contact. On the screen, a line went from a meandering wave into a scribble.

"I saw that." said the Professor. "Whatever you're doing to her, Erik, please stop. We already know everything we need to about the processes of attraction and bonding."

Grace couldn't help it; she snorted with laughter. _My feelings and my mind seem disconnected somehow—he's here, so I'm happy. This makes no sense…_

"Your mind works rather differently than others." Erik took over.

He did not, however, move away, but leaned against her as he pointed to the screen. His warmth soaked into her like the sun's rays. "There. That bandwidth. In most, mutant and human alike, that line is a mere waver. If you're alive, you have that going at all times, awake and asleep. It is a psychic function, a baseline that serves no known purpose but to simply say, 'I'm here.'—and to receive that message in return. If you've ever gone into a seemingly empty room, only to have a nagging feeling that you were not alone, and discovered someone was concealed there, it is because you sensed that."

"It's been postulated that is the connection to Jung's collective unconscious—the shared reservoir of human experience, those things which we are born knowing, to which we are always attuned, but never directly conscious of." Xavier added.

"Except her. Whatever it is, Grace is conscious of it." Jean said, looking at it. "It may be only a thin pencil line in everybody else, but in her, it's drawn with a thick black magic marker."

"Rather than the collective unconscious, I prefer to think of it as the genetic umbilical cord which links us all to the genetic Eve." commented Erik. "If you'll call back the record—thank you."

There were three wide pulses along the brainwave line. "So that's what he said." Grace mused. "Are those my responses?" She pointed to a line above it, which showed a brain reaction to the 'communications'.

"Yes, up in the highest centers of thought—what you use when you do mathematics in your head, or imagine something which doesn't yet exist." replied Xavier.

"So what does it mean?" She looked from one man to the other.

"That you aren't receiving these messages on the same wavelength as a telepathic communication. That's Jean speaking in your mind—there." Erik pointed to another scribble. "It's as if you could hear outside the range of normal hearing, only with your telepathic ear—you're receiving on a wavelength most people can't."

"Tell her your theory." Xavier prompted.

"Very well. I spoke of a genetic umbilical cord, an unsevered genetic link back to our common female ancestor, through thousands upon thousands of generations. Why should there not be an unsevered genetic link leading forward from you?"

She turned to face Erik, as he went on. "There is no single individual now living whose powers could account for not only what you are seeing and hearing, but the degree of knowledge and awareness of the past, present and future on a near omniscient level. At the same time, they seem unable to directly influence more than a piece or two of paper." He explained about his fall, and the messages he and Professor Xavier had received.

"That sounds like them," Grace acknowledged. "Opinionated, open to interpretation, and raising more questions than they answer."

"Quite. I theorize that one or more of your future descendants is transcending time through a genetic link to you. They can observe but not affect events to any greater extent than that which they displayed here, with these messages—except through you.

"You are their hands and feet in this time and place. They are your eyes, your map through the darkness and danger."

"If you had explained it that way before, instead of waxing poetic about it, I would have taken your theory more seriously," commented Xavier.

"You were the one who asked if I believed it was God speaking to her." retorted Magneto. "All along, the tone and form of these communications has had a juvenile aspect to it—the badgering, the way in which they speak—through toys and cartoon-like illustrations. These voices are your children, however many generations removed."

"That's a thought! Plus, they're not disagreeing with you," noted Grace, "as they did the Professor, earlier. But then, they're not saying anything at all. I asked them if they were God, the Devil, my own subconscious, an extraterrestrial, or the baby, and they neither claimed or denied any of them. By the way, did the Toad have an abusive childhood?"

"As it happens, yes. Why? Has he been bothering you?" Erik asked her.

"Not in the least. If anything, I was bothering him. He has a miserable cold, and the dog in the portrait above the parlor fireplace insisted I do something about it. Then she told me his mother used to put cigarettes out on him, and he's severely traumatized as a result. I gave him the tissues I had in my purse, and a dose of cold medicine. It put him out like a light."

"He's very sensitive to medications." frowned Magneto. "Was it a time-release formula?"

"Yes."

"Well, Charles, I'm afraid you'll have to put us up for the night. Mystique's not here, and he's my only other pilot."

"I imagine we can find room for you somewhere. Ms. Engstrom, that was very kind of you." said the professor. "One forgets, sometimes, that foes are also people." For some reason that seemed to be aimed at Jean, who squirmed.

"I don't deserve such praise." Grace replied. "I didn't notice his cold. All I did was listen."

"Listening is the hard part." Xavier's brow creased as he looked down at the messages on his desk. "Thank you, Jean. The conversation is about to become intensely private. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. I'll see you later, Grace. I'm going to go see about getting the Toad into a real bed, or he'll wake up feeling worse than he did when he fell asleep."

The doctor left, and Professor Xavier turned to Grace. "Won't the two of you please take a seat? Talking with you like this is rather awkward." He paused while they took seats across from him—and next to each other. "I'm afraid I can't share Erik's faith in your voices—."

"How much more of a sign can you need?" protested that individual.

"I don't know." The professor confessed.

"Tell him to read your file." said the monkey. "It's all in the file." He pointed to a familiar folder—the one from her former doctor's office.

"The monkey says it's in my file." Grace said.

"What is?"

"Your sign. I don't know what it is, but you'll probably know it the moment you come across it."

"What am I to do with it once I find it? This is all so vague." complained Xavier.

"That's because you're making it so. I'm disappointed in you, Charles. I would have thought you would have jumped at the chance to make the bargain I offered you."

"Put your foot down," said the lion.

"Literally or figuratively?" Grace asked.

"Put your foot down!" it repeated.

"They're not hounding me." She pointed out. "They're needling each other." She turned to them. "The lion says you should stop fighting."

"Put it down!" it practically shouted.

"I wish she wouldn't do that out loud." The professor rubbed his forehead. "It doesn't help her case."

"Why on earth should you object?" Erik snapped at him. "It's her power—or they're her voices. No one here questions your ability to read minds."

"Put your foot down!"

"No, but I do so unobtrusively." retorted Xavier.

"Put your foot down!"

"Gentlemen, enough with the arguing." Grace tried.

"Why force her to be other than she is?" Erik demanded.

"Put your foot down!"

"I'm trying—Okay. I'll try it literally." Grace sprang to her feet, and brought one heel down hard on the floorboards, which made a crack like a pistol shot. It had the immediate effect of quieting the two men.

"Sorry. The wood seems to have split." She bent over and picked up the sliver which had broken off. "Oh—." Something sparkled in the gritty dust in the space under the floor. She could just fit her thumb and forefinger in the hole. "It's your house and your office—does this look familiar?" It was a woman's ring, set with five stones—three sapphires of peerless blue separated by two diamonds.

"That—was my mother's." Charles Xavier whispered, and reached out for it. "My father gave it to her when I was born. My initials should be inside it, along with theirs, and the date…"

Grace put it in his hand. "This was lost over fifty years ago. I always thought my stepfather had stolen it. I—I am going to go over to the far corner of the room and look at your file, Ms. Engstrom. In the meantime, your things have been removed from our plane, but not from our hangar. I believe Erik has something he wants to say to you concerning that."


	17. On the edge

Erik Lensherr regarded Grace Engstrom's face for a long moment before he spoke—the rainwater eyes, and the passionate mouth. He felt a tremendous burst of affection for her. _How well it all fits together—that the future of mutantkind and my own future should come together in one person. I shall not lie to her, but I fear the entire truth would prove too much, taken all at once. Best to deliver it in stages._

"This is not how I wanted to say this to you. It is—it must be rushed, without the time for things like dinners out, roses, and dancing. Instead it will come as too abrupt. I fear it smacks of the possessive and patriarchal, which is far from my intent. There is a place where I live, Grace, and if you were to live there with me, it would be a home."

She drew in a long, shuddering breath, and her eyes closed, overwhelmed, he thought, by emotion. "I could go down on one knee, if you like," he offered, mock-anxiously, hoping to make her smile. "My joints are behaving quite well today." It had the desired effect; although her smile was but a shadow of her former smiles, still, it was a smile.

His heart contracted in his chest at the sight. _I could not say this if I did not mean it. I am not paying her in false coin. I am lost here…_

But her "Oh, Erik," was an exhalation of pain. "If it weren't for the lion, I wouldn't even consider being in the same room with you ever again, let alone living with you. Jean told me about the Statue of Liberty, and how you nearly killed a girl who could be one of my own nieces."

_I should have anticipated this._ He bit back his retort—_I must not alienate her_—and instead said, "That is not a readily defensible episode, I know. It was not a decision I made lightly or easily, and God knows I am not proud of it. Yet you said the lion spoke on my behalf?" _Perhaps the one responsible for this is my descendant as well as hers. _

_"_It told me not to turn my back on you. For some reason, it's important." Her brow contracted, and she stared intently at the lamb. "The lamb just told me to ask you where the nearest hospital is to your home."

"I haven't been thinking that far ahead." he confessed. "In all truth I don't know where the nearest hospital is—the nearest which admits mutants, that is."

_And Mystique acted as our medic._ A feeling of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. _Grace is forty-seven. That's a late age at which to become a mother for the first time. So much could go wrong—if she slipped on the winter ice and fell, if labor began too soon, if, if if if if…I want a safe delivery with a healthy baby and a living mother at the end of it even more than she does._ "That is a legitimate—no, a vital question. I will dedicate all my resources to finding the answer."

He reached out, took her hand. "Your health and welfare, and that of our child, are of utmost importance to me." He was utterly sincere, and she could read that, on his face, in his eyes.

"Dr. Grey showed me the infirmary here." She told him. "They have everything a hospital could, except for a birthing chair—and I like her. I'd prefer to have a doctor in attendance who I could trust."

He heard what she was not saying, and replied to that. "I fear that unless Dr. Grey were to undergo a complete change of heart, that would not be possible. My ideology and that of Charles Xavier are fundamentally opposed to one another. This truce is only temporary." _I doubt she will go against the advice of her voices._ "It's a decision you must make, my dear. One side or the other. I can only say that I will do my best to make you happy—and keep you safe." Finished, he waited for her reply.

* * *

Meanwhile, Charles Xavier was reading his way through Grace's medical file. It was not terribly interesting reading. He read his way through the sad history of her previous efforts to have a family, considered the three years after her divorce, during which her father had died of lung cancer and her mother been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. As a result, she had gone on Prozac and other anti-depressants—not a great surprise. Every year, she had an annual check-up and physical, and a flu shot. Later years included mammograms. 

Her health was uniformly excellent. She only had a few visits for accidents or illnesses—and those were marked by a phenomenal rate of healing. A fall from a deck that resulted in a broken ankle, which healed in less than a month, provided some interest, as did the ruptured eardrum, suffered while playing paintball at a nephew's birthday party. A paintball had been fired into her ear at pointblank range by accident. She was deaf in her left ear for six weeks—and should have remained so for the rest of her life. Her doctor had been baffled at the time, but attributed it to the injury being less severe than the original diagnosis.

Then he reached the consent form which Grace had signed when she gave her DNA sample for the breast cancer gene screening, and he stopped.

It was a brief form.

He read it all the way through, and then he read it again.

There was nothing remarkable about what was in it. It wasn't complicated.

The remarkable thing about it was—what wasn't in it.

His hands began to tremble as he frantically read through the remaining documents in the file.

_Surely this can't be…_

_It can't mean what I think it means…_

But it did.

* * *

A/N: Oh, yes, a _**double**_ cliffhanger! I am evil, evil, evil!!!! 


	18. Over the Edge

_This is ridiculous_, Grace thought. _How on earth can I be thinking about living with a man I barely know, despite how I feel about him, pregnant or not. Under any other circumstances, I'd laugh—but after the last twenty-four hours, I haven't the assurance anymore. I'm vulnerable, I know it. I don't want to make any decisions at all, I only want to feel safe._

To stall for time, she said, "Kiss me."—_as if that could clarify things_.

He smiled at her with that twinkle of confidence, humor and charm he had shown that night in Australia, which had told her, and quite accurately, _he would be a **lot** of fun in bed._ Then he leaned over.

_He smells good,_ she thought, before his lips met hers.

This was a kiss like the miraculous warm day in February when one could shed winter's heavy coat and feel sunlight and air on one's skin. When he leaned back again, his smile had that same gladness and hope as when he had asked her, in her ruined dining room, 'Is it mine?'

Now he asked her, "Is that the answer, then?"

"I—."

As she was trying to sort out her thoughts, the lion spoke up. "Mend what is broken."

"Get it together!" added the lamb.

"All for one and one for all!" That was the monkey.

A stuffed owl on a side table flapped its wings to get her attention, and said "If you do not all hang together, you will most assuredly all hang separately."

"Unify!" That was the title bird in a framed illustration from Poe's poem, 'The Raven'.

They were ganging up on her:

"Refuse to choose!"

"The clock is ticking!"

"You're all in this together!"

"Make _them_ compromise!"

"You're running out of time!"

"Reconcile the seemingly disparate!"

"You're all in this together!"

"No mutant left behind!"

"Can't you all just get along?"

"You're all in this together!"

"Stop the fighting!"

"You're all in this together!"

"Increase the peace!"

They joined in on a single phrase, repeated over and over—:

"You're all in this together!"

"You're all in this together!"

"You're all in this together!"

She had sprung to her feet without realizing it. Clapping her hands to her ears, she cried out, "Enough, enough, enough!"

Erik was looking up at her with surprise and concern. "It's quite clear they're distressing you." he observed. "What do they want?"

"If I'm right, something you're not going to like." she said. Raising her voice, she spoke over the chorus of slogans. "You want me to get the mutant community to unite and both sides to compromise for the sake of the greater good. Is that it?"

"Yes!" they shouted in unison.

"You don't have to shout!" She told Erik, "That's it."

She could see his thoughts chase each other across his face—he weighed and considered the statement, and then his face turned stubborn, harder.

"Ms. Engstrom?" the Professor turned his chair around to face them.

"He's found it." the monkey said, with satisfaction, and went back to his book.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Were you ever told why you were screened for the mutant gene? Were you informed beforehand that such screening was included when you permitted them to take a DNA sample for testing? Think carefully. Recall it as perfectly as you can."

"No. I wasn't."

Xavier's eyes were burning with an odd light. "Tell me everything you can recall about it. How did you learn about the screening? Who suggested it? What made you decide to have it done?"

"All right…" Grace sat down again, and began.

"Four months ago, I went in for my annual pelvic exam and mammogram. As you are men, and therefore have never had a mammogram, let me describe for you what it's like.

"Imagine if someone took your tongue, pulled it out of your mouth just to the point before it became unbearably painful, and then squeezed it between two cold metal plates. In several different directions. And expected you to hold perfectly still while they took X-rays of it. Then imagine that they moved on and did your scrotum next."

That one got them where they lived—both men shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Once you turn thirty-five, this torture begins—every other year at first, then annually after you turn forty. If they see something—something which might be only a dot, or a shadow—you have to go in and have it done again a few weeks later. Usually it turns out to be nothing.

"But the current statistic is that one out of every seven women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives. Fifteen years ago, it was one in nine. I didn't like those odds, so I never skipped an appointment.

"As I was wincing my way through the last mammogram, the technician said, 'You know, we offer genetic screening now for the breast cancer genes. If you had it done, you would know your degree of risk. There is a fee involved, but it would never have to be performed again.'

"I asked, 'How much does it cost, and how much does it hurt?'

"She replied, 'It costs two hundred dollars, and it doesn't hurt at all. All you have to do is take a scraping from cells inside your mouth, from the inside of your cheek. You do it yourself, and you don't even have to draw blood.'

"'I'll do it'. I told her.

"She brought me a pamphlet about how it worked, and a consent form. I remember the form was printed on a stiff card, and it had a little plastic envelope sealed onto it—to keep the form and the DNA sample together, she said. I signed the form, took a scraping with a little plastic stick that came in a sterile wrapper, put it in the envelope, and gave it back to her. Yesterday, I got the result."

"Did she at any time mention the mutant gene?" asked the professor.

"No—Yes. She said the same screening was available for the prostate cancer gene in men, and that their technicians were fully qualified and licensed to perform mutant gene screening in compliance with the Mutant Registration Act."

"But she did not mention you would be screened for the mutant gene?" Xavier leaned forward.

"No. I would have remembered that." Grace replied, with certainty.

"Did the pamphlet you received mention either the mutant gene, or that if you submitted a sample, you would be screened for anything other than the breast cancer gene?"

"I don't think it did—but I have it here in my knitting tote. I wrote some design measurements on the back of it, because it was blank." After some rummaging, she pulled out a creased but intact booklet, and scanned the pages before she handed it to him. "Nothing in it about the mutant gene at all."

"No." he confirmed. "Nothing at all…Yesterday, before they drew blood, were you told why they were taking a sample? Were you shown the results of the first test?"

"No. I assumed the sample was taken in connection to the condition I thought I had—early menopause."

"Early menopause?" Erik's lips quirked with amusement.

"I didn't know I was pregnant, and with my history, early menopause was a much more likely scenario."

"Nor were you informed first of the results of the first screening, or told you had the right to have the second test performed at the facility of your choice." Charles Xavier stated.

"No. Did I have that right?"

"You had more than that. Ms. Engstrom, eleven years ago, every state was required to pass a set of Genetic Privacy Laws, to ensure that information from genetic screenings would not be misused, and that individuals had certain rights over their genetic property—their DNA, to prevent the misuse of their genes. As you might expect, I was quite involved with it—I tried—."

"And failed," Erik commented.

"—to get a clause incorporated into the laws which declared any discrimination against an individual based on his or her genetic code to be unconstitutional and illegal. As Erik said, I did not succeed in that—but the laws that were passed are not rendered null and void simply because you are a mutant."

Xavier leaned forward over his desk, holding out Grace's consent form. "By law, you have the right to determine what your genes may be screened for—and what they may not. The screening body—in this case, your health care provider's laboratory—has the legal responsibility to inform you of that, and of what information can reasonably be expected to be learned from your screening.

"You have the right to refuse the use of your sample for research or commercial purposes, and the right to inspect and have explained to you the records and results of any screening.

"Your health care provider was required by law to inform you in writing of your rights, of what they were screening you for, and to obtain your written acknowledgement of those rights, and your consent, on a form which reiterates the purpose of the genetic analysis—and limits it.

"The pamphlet omits any mention of your rights. It's essentially advertising. And this consent form—."

"This consent form which you signed says that you consent to have your DNA screened for the genes which cause breast cancer. And nothing else."

* * *

A/N: There is a Genetic Privacy Act out there, but it hasn't been passed into law (that I know of) as yet. It outlines the rights I have mentioned here, although I added all the parts having to do with mutants. It made sense that in this universe, it would have been passed into law. 


	19. We Have Them!

A/N: Reviews?

* * *

"We have them." Xavier finished. "We have them dead to rights."

"You disappoint me, Charles. So the rights of one mutant were violated. What makes you think the courts are going to care?" Magneto's voice was cynical and world-weary.

"They will care because she is not the only victim. This print-out makes it clear that every woman tested by this health-care provider, Marine StarCare, on that day was screened not only for breast cancer genes, but for everything from the mutant gene to the genes for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, conditions such as early-onset Alzheimer's disease—everything that can be learned from a genetic profile. What did they intend to do with that information? For what purpose were they assembling such an illegal genetic database about a section of the American population?

"For that matter—I doubt that day was an exception. I suspect that Marine StarCare has been collecting this information on everyone they screened from the start. When this goes into court, every woman and every man who trustingly handed over a DNA sample will think to themselves: 'It could have been me.' " Xavier reached for the phone. "I need Hank. I need him here as soon as possible."

As Xavier dialed the first of his former student's numbers, Erik reached for Grace's medical file. _Ah. As I expected—they have a digital chromatograph of her genetic profile._

"Something's making you smile,_"_ she observed.

"Your portrait, rendered in chromosomes. Not the usual likeness of one's beloved, I admit, but it is not without its beauties. Here—." He leaned closer to her, so that she might see the images. Their cheeks almost brushed together, and her breath glanced off his chin, sending a signal straight down his spinal column. "That bright red dot, at the center of the X-chromosome. That's the mutant gene. They've circled it."

"I see—For something so significant, it's so small."

"Keys are small, yet they can unlock great mansions as well as tiny boxes. This gene can unlock a universe of possibilities. With that in place, these genes—otherwise just so much filler among the rest, without function or purpose—become so much more. On the twelfth chromosome pair, that's the complex for a healing factor."

"You can read chromosomes so easily?" She looked at him with open admiration in her eyes.

"It's nice to be properly appreciated." He smiled at her. "Long years of study and practice, my dear. For another, that banding on the first chromosome pair, when complemented by this on the third, that's the factor for a strong, if in your case baffling, psychic ability."

His eyes kept traveling back to the twenty-third chromosome pair, her X-chromosome, which made her both a mutant and a woman, where the mutant gene rested in what was, what had to be the 'Maeve' gene complex—. _It speaks to me as clearly as Grace's voices speak to her. Her centrosomes specifically form a setting for the mutant gene. Only the mutant gene will fit. The gene of a Sapient will not._

_Yet I must wait. Until I have proof in the form of a healthy mutant baby, with Grace herself alive and well after a safe delivery, too much can go wrong. Such as this mad notion of Charles'._

"But at the moment, my concern is more for your voices. Did they give you any specifics concerning why mutantkind must reconcile their differences and unite?" _I can't very well believe them when it suits my purposes and ignore them when I don't, more's the pity. _

"I'm assuming it has to do with what the Professor found in my file, since the monkey said he'd found what he was supposed to find. I can tell you they were very insistent over the need for mutantkind to stop fighting each other and start working together. Apparently there's a deadline.

"Look," she addressed the animals on the desk. "if I'm going to convince everybody, I need a little more information. What exactly is it mutantkind has to accomplish? I don't know exactly how long everybody can realistically be kept together on one page. However, if I can tell them what the goal is, and when the deadline comes, then I think we've got a fighting chance."

She paused. "We have to get the Mutant Registration Act rescinded. And anti-discrimination laws passed. We have until the baby's due date to get it done, or it'll be too late. What happens if we can't accomplish that? Oh."

Grace turned curious eyes on him. "The lion said 'Ask him to show you his arm.' He definitely meant you. He nodded toward you."

_I always knew it would come to that—the concentration camps, a policy of extermination, and the deaths, dear God, the deaths. _He looked into Grace's questioning eyes. _I took some pains to make sure she would not see it, that night or the next morning, but given that we are now apparently entering into a 'long-term relationship', she will have to learn my history some time or another. _He raised the arm which bore the tattooed number, the one which they inked into his skin at Auschwitz. "I know what they mean," he said, as he slid his sleeve up. "They mean the camps will come back."

She looked, and her face twisted with sympathetic anguish. "You're a Holocaust survivor. That—that explains a lot about you."

"I suppose it does." he said, neutrally. "However, if I and my followers are going to get behind this effort, there will have to be a definite plan, and I am certainly not going to be the only one to make compromises. I am tentatively willing to enter into this, but I have conditions that must be met."

"What's going on?" Xavier asked. "Henry—Dr. McCoy, the secretary for Mutant Affairs, Ms. Engstrom, who asked us to bring you here—is on his way. He must be fully informed of what is going on."

"So must you." Erik replied. "Grace, perhaps you had better be the one to explain."

She did. The vertical grooves between Xavier's eyes deepened and multiplied as she did.

"How do they know?" he asked, when she was done.

"How did they know your mother's ring was under the floor in that spot? How did they know I was going to the doctor? They know. I don't think you're going to get any more concrete proofs than that. So—what needs to happen now?" she asked.

"Henry needs to be here—we cannot proceed without his assistance and support."

"What is it you intend to do?" Magneto asked.

"That depends upon Ms. Engstrom. If she is willing to proceed with her civil rights case against Marine StarCare, we will assist and support her to the fullest extent of our abilities. Ms. Engstrom, I hope you understand _you_ are going to have to make a formal complaint to the authorities. Yours are the rights which have been violated. You have ample grounds for a case against them. You will have to go to court. There will be a trial, and it will be a lengthy one. You will have all the help we can give you, but you are going to be on the front lines."

"That puts a different face upon the matter." Erik frowned in thought. "Is this what you want, Grace? I can think of a great many dangers involved—dangers to you and to our child."

"Erik—I don't think I have a choice in the matter. Events—and my voices—are moving me toward this like—like a train on its rails. Think of all the things that had to happen for this to come about."

"Ms. Engstrom is correct." Xavier's voice was strong and sure. "I am absolutely certain no one was ever supposed to reveal the existence of Marine StarCare's secret screening program—not even when it revealed the subjects were mutants. The sequence of events which led to Dr. Bertram announcing to her that she was a mutant—including the documents in her file, the list of women who were screened—is so improbable I am staggered by it. So many fantastic coincidences—cannot be mere coincidences."

"I'm glad you're coming around to my point of view." remarked Erik dryly. "What will be required of me and mine?"

"Protection. Not merely of Ms. Engstrom, but of Dr. Bertram, his family, the laboratory technicians, their supervisor, the mammography technician, and all of their families—because I am willing to wager that once Marine StarCare—or whoever is behind them—discovers what has happened, they will be willing to kill to prevent them from testifying in this matter."

Xavier rubbed his forehead. "The data in their computers must be prevented from being erased, their headquarters and the doctor's office and laboratory watched so they aren't burned or bombed, and as the case comes to trial, the jurors and their families as well. Ms. Engstrom will need a lawyer, probably more than one, and they must be shielded as well, for this case will shake the world. And now when we know exactly what is at stake…"

"Very well. I will assist, but it must be with my conditions met.

"First of all, Grace's safety is paramount. Whenever she must leave either this estate or my compound, it must be with several mutants around her, people whose powers and skills are suited to defend and protect her. You will have to go to court, Grace, but other than that, it would be for the best that you stayed close to home. The AGP will be after you, and other such groups; Marine StarCare, and whoever they may hire, and then there is the media. They will pursue you without mercy. Let your lawyers, your friends and family come to you. Do your shopping on-line, or let someone else go for you. When it is possible, have Dr. Grey on hand at all times, just in case." _That will solve one problem—of where and how I am to find another doctor who is both a mutant and a_ woman.

"The monkey's telling me to listen." She sounded dejected. "It will be hard, not getting to go places—but better than the alternative."

"Very good. Second, I must be of equal status to you, Charles, and my people of equal status to yours. If I give an order to Cyclops or Wolverine, they must obey me as they would you. In turn, I will see to it my people understand the same will be expected of them. We shall have to mix the groups up, or we will always have two groups."

"Done. What else?"

"There must be no hiding. If we are to be free and legally equal, then we should not have to hide what we are and what we can do. When the anti-discriminatory laws are drawn up, the right to use one's powers must be considered an aspect of freedom as much as speech is."

"Erik, I appreciate all that you're proposing to do here, but—" began Xavier.

"No. I don't think you do. Whose way is this, fighting with lawsuits and court actions? Not mine. Yet in the face of the information that if I go my way and you go yours, we will all of us end in the same place, and that place is the same as where I began, I am willing to make changes. I am willing to do anything rather than see a second Holocaust. What are you willing to do?"

"Mutants cannot use their powers any way they please. They must abide by the law as surely as any Sapient." Xavier shook his head.

"That is understood. Deadly force may be necessary, and before you object, may I remind you that you keep Wolverine around? The pot has no right to call the kettle black."

The Professor sighed. "All right."

"I'm sure this won't be the end of the conditions, but if, as it may be, " Erik turned to Grace, "the child you're carrying is the first mutant child of two mutant parents, I would like your permission to study your DNA with an eye to learning what, if anything, in your genetic code has contributed to that advance. It may be that your genes will ensure the future of mutantkind." _There; I have laid the groundwork for the future._

"Wait a minute. You mean that for all the mutants in the world, none of them come from two mutant parents?" Grace asked.

"None. All of them have at least one Sapient parent." Erik told her.

"How hard are mutants trying?"

"Not very hard." Xavier put in. "The uncertainty of the future, combined with access to birth control, has reduced the birth rate to almost nil. If we succeed in what we are trying to do, I hope that will change. Now, as for what I will require of you, Erik.

"First, we must present a united front. We cannot fight it out in front of others—all disagreement and negotiation must be carried out in private, as it has today. Ms. Engstrom can be on hand to referee, but to all others, we must seem as though we have never had a divided opinion."

"Agreed. It would only further the divide. More?"

"You cannot order your people or mine to kill. You may authorize the use of deadly force, but not command it. They must be left to decide that for themselves."

"If it must be so, then it shall be."

"You must also explain to your people that they must not only obey direct orders, but the house rules. If they are of an age to attend classes, they must attend, and they must behave toward each other with courtesy and respect."

"You will not find them lacking. Do you imagine I let them run riot at home?"

"No, I suppose not." Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ms. Engstrom, do you have any needs or conditions to add?"

"Yes, I do. I'm going to need space. I mean I'm going to need enough room for my work, in an area where I can shut the door and be private. I love people, and I love socializing, but there are so many of them here, and I'm used to having a house to myself. If I can't get away off-campus, I'm going to have to be able to get away on campus."

"At my residence, that is easily arranged." Erik declared.

"We can work something out here as well." Xavier said. "Anything else?"

"I'm going to need some understanding." She looked at Erik apologetically. "While Jean and I were discussing my pregnancy, the lion told me not to tell anyone—anyone at all, even you—the identity of this baby's father, even if he's a mutant or not. I don't know why. It isn't that I don't want to tell. Or that I can't tell, or that I have anything to hide. For some reason, I'm not supposed to tell."

_So what is going on now?_ "That is rather difficult to understand."

"I know, and in six and a half months or less, everything will be clear and you can demand whatever paternity tests you want, but until they say otherwise, I have to keep silent."

"That isn't such a bad idea." The Professor was serious. "The media will have quite enough to feed on as it is. Is that all?"

"I would be most grateful for a sandwich." Grace smiled ruefully. "I didn't have much breakfast, and it's well past lunch."

"On that note, perhaps it would be best to take a break until Henry can join us." concluded Xavier.


	20. Breaking the News

Charles Xavier looked at the items on his desk, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. _What have I gotten us into?,_ he wondered.

Ms. Engstrom had left her animals behind, all three of them, saying she didn't like to take calls during lunch. Erik had accompanied her, leaving the professor in the privacy of his office.

Xavier wasn't hungry, but then he wasn't pregnant, nor did he have the same assurance Magneto had. _We may be saved as a result of this, or we may be damned. _He picked up the messages and read them once more: 'Trust Communication' and 'Make love, not war.' Then he sent a telepathic message to his senior staff.

Storm arrived first. "Professor, what's going on? Colossus just helped Jean put an unconscious Toad to bed as tenderly as if he were one of our own, Magneto and Ms. Engstrom are making themselves at home in our kitchen, and Logan just called from Detroit asking us to wire him money for a train ticket home. He was even more profane than usual, for he said Magneto threw him in a lake. I didn't know it, but apparently Logan is a very poor swimmer. He says the weight of his adamantium skeleton weighs him down."

"I wish _I_ knew what was going on. Jean and Scott will be here in a moment. Please, take a seat."

Scott was the next to enter. "Professor, I just spoke to Rogue. She says Magneto and his…um, Ms. Engstrom are in the kitchen, and Ms. Engstrom was talking to the oven mitts."

"The ones shaped like fish?" asked the professor, anticipating the answer.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"If it's any consolation, I'm sure they spoke to her first. Ms. Engstrom's mental powers manifest themselves in an unusual way."

Scott muttered something under his breath that sounded like 'more like mental problems than powers.', but Xavier let it go for the moment.

Jean came in, and the Professor hailed her with relief. "Hello, Jean. Please, have a seat. I've called the three of you here to tell you about an extremely important development…" He explained at length.

"We're joining forces with Magneto?" That was Scott. "How can you even think about trusting him?"

"I don't believe it!" Ororo shook her head. "Do you think it really is his child?"

"Does he genuinely love her?" Jean asked.

"To answer your questions in turn, yes, we are joining forces with Magneto. Recall that I have known him a lot longer than you have, Scott, and I know when he is being sincere."

_I must begin as I intend to continue. I was the one who insisted on a united front; I cannot say that to him and then openly display my misgivings to my X-men_. "When he speaks of his desire to avoid a second Holocaust, no one could think otherwise."

"But can we trust Ms. Engstrom? What kind of person hears strange voices in their head—and not only believes in them, but feels compelled to do what they tell her?" Scott protested.

"A seer." Ororo answered him. "A prophet or a visionary. You forget how much of my life I lived in Africa, and I can tell you that in 'less advanced' societies," 'Less advanced' was spoken with an edge of sarcasm, "the people who speak to animal images and get answers back are highly revered."

"Yes, but who do they think they're talking to?" Scott asked.

"Gods. Not the Creator, but smaller gods. The Professor touched on Jung's collective unconscious. That includes religions and stories—which were among the first things humans invented. Just because we made them up doesn't mean that on some level, they aren't real." she replied.

"Storm, that is as valid a theory as Magneto's, and as likely to be the truth. As to the paternity of Ms. Engstrom's child—he would like to believe it is his, certainly, and I think the odds are greatly in his favor. Perhaps it would be better to think of it as _her_ child, if it bothers you that he might be the father."

"All right." she said, slowly.

"Jean, to answer your question, I think he is half in love with her, which is rather more than I believed him capable of, as he has been of late. His interest in her is sincere, and his concern for her welfare, genuine. She is as unlike Mystique as a woman can be, and I would not be surprised if she were somewhat like his late wife in some respects—he may be trying to recreate or make up for that failed relationship."

"Doesn't she deserve better than that—better than him?"

"It's not a question of what she deserves, as her voices seem to be in favor of it. His personal interest in her means we shall have his assistance at a crucial time—and make no mistake, we will need it. That, however, is in the long term. In the short term, I need a favor from you."

The three looked at each other, "Just say it, sir." Scott spoke for them.

"I anticipate Henry's imminent arrival, and I would appreciate it if Ms. Engstrom were not in my office for our initial conference. If I am correct, there will be things said she should not have to hear. Take her on a guided tour of the house and grounds—you might also look for a suitable space for her to work and live, somewhere off the beaten path. It would not hurt if you were to look at several obviously unsuitable places first. If you can keep her occupied until—4:30, that would be a great help to me."

"Of course," Jean said, warmly.

"You can rely on us." Ororo stood.

Scott simply nodded.

As they were leaving, Xavier called to Scott. "Mr. Summers—if you would, please make an effort to conceal your misgivings and dislike. What Ms. Engstrom is proposing to do for mutantkind—to stand up and fight by raising her voice until the world hears it—takes, in its way, as much courage or more than facing a foe in physical combat."

The young man paused. "I understand you, sir."

"Thank you, Scott."

* * *

"Grace?" Jean stood in the kitchen doorway. "Professor Xavier said to tell you it'll be a little while before Hank gets here, so he suggested we should take you on a little tour of the school until then. You should keep your eyes open for a good workspace while we go, he also said." 

Grace looked at Erik, who replied, "It's entirely up to you; I know the house of old. I shall probably go back to the office and engage Charles in chess."

The trout potholder advised her. "Go ahead. See the joint." So she put her plate and glass away in the dishwasher, and followed Jean.

"This is our dining hall, through here…"

Some time later, the four of them were in the rooms above the garage. "As you can see, there's plenty of space," Scott explained. "but you have to put up with the noise of the furnace in the winter, the air conditioner in the summer, and the generator all the time."

"If there are other possibilities, I'd like to see them before I make up my mind," Grace said. She wandered over to the bathroom sink, which had four dead flies and an enormous rust stain in the basin, and tried it. It started groaning horribly, and coughed out a small quantity of dirty water.

"Sure," Scott agreed, and tried to put a window frame back together.

In the meantime, Jean wandered over to Grace and said, her voice belying the words, "You keep that up, and you're going to make me jealous. I know for a fact Scott's susceptible to red-heads."

"Oh—I was looking at him, but it wasn't like that. I was trying to make him out, and when I do that, I play a little mental game with myself, sometimes. I imagine someone as a customer at my booth, and visualize what they would buy."

"So what would Scott buy?"

"A charcoal merino hat and muffler set—mostly plain, but with some texture knitted into the edges."

"Actually, that sounds a lot like the set he has now—only they're blue."

"What was that?" Scott called. Jean explained. "I'd wear them." he said. "What about Jean?"

"A V-necked top in burnt-orange mohair, with some spangles or metallic thread at the cuffs and waistline."

"All right. I have just got to see all your stuff. Ororo next." Jean challenged her.

"A crop-top with angel sleeves, in a wool-silk blend with a bit of shine. Creamy white, undyed, and a yarn with thick slubs at intervals."

"That sounds beautiful," Storm drew nearer. "What about the professor?"

"A navy-blue lamb's wool cardigan with a wide rolled collar, and intricate cabling, for the weekends."

"You're good." Jean smiled. "But how about the Toad?"

"Oversized pullover, self-striping yarn with purple and yellow."

"All right. How about Magneto?" Ororo raised her index finger.

"Cashmere socks, in a black-plum shade." Grace said. _I don't even have to think about that one._

"I was sure you were going to say steel wool." The white-haired mutant woman winked at her.

"That's a great line—I wish I'd said that."

"I've just had an idea. I want you to come look at my attic." the weatherwitch suggested.

"All right…"


	21. Too Good To Be True

"These stairs are awfully dark." Grace commented as they turned the bend.

"The light bulb's burned out, that's all. It'll take two seconds to replace it." Jean reassured her.

"All right." Scott opened the door at the top of the stairs, and gauzy light flooded down.

Grace stepped out of the stairwell into…a cathedral full of junk.

It was the high, vaulted ceiling which made her think of a cathedral. It was really just an attic, the attic in the wing opposite from Ororo's, but the junk was certainly there. _This is way too much work._

"We'd have to get the kids to help move this stuff and do some cleaning, some painting, but it's really not that bad. The wiring was redone three or four years ago, when the rest of the house was, and it's insulated. It used to be servant's quarters, so there is a bathroom down at the end. You won't get the same water pressure as in the rest of the house, but it should be okay." Scott informed her.

"I know I don't get the greatest pressure over in my bathroom." Ororo said. "It's the only downside to living up here. Look—." She showed Grace the view from the windows.

"I can see the reservoir from here." Grace said, and looked around the attic again. _It might not be so bad…_ She laughed. "I'll be the madwoman in the attic!"

* * *

"Henry—welcome home," Xavier greeted the blue-furred mutant.

"Professor," the Beast said, with warmth. "It's good to be back." He nodded curtly in Magneto's direction, omitting any spoken greeting, before turning back to his former teacher. "What is it that you couldn't discuss on the phone?"

"A civil rights violation on a massive scale." Xavier outlined what Marine StarCare had done, passing Grace's file over to him. "If she were to proceed with this as a two-pronged case, citing her health provider for violating the Genetic Privacy laws, and against the Mutant Registration Act for having caused her harm by 'outing' her as a mutant, leading to the vandalism of her home, the attack on her life, the loss of personal and business relationships, and the loss of future income, what would be the chances of winning?"

Hank McCoy whistled. "This is phenomenal. Unprecedented. What are the chances, Professor? I can tell you I've never seen a stronger case—or one which will be a greater uphill battle. A great deal of it will depend on Ms. Engstrom herself—how she comports herself on the witness stand and in front of the media. The only impression I've formed of her is that she is attractive and has an obsession with natural fibers. What is your opinion of her?"

Xavier opined, "Intelligent, well-spoken, and unthreatening. She comes across as very sympathetic."

"Good, good." The Beast replied absently.

_Am I not even in the room?_ "I would add that she has considerable warmth and charm." Erik put in.

"Really." said McCoy flatly, giving him a look which Magneto interpreted as 'I don't know why you're here, but I don't approve.' "What, if any, are her powers?" He addressed the Professor.

_I am getting tired of being ignored._ "She has a healing factor, if a lesser one, and a strong but unusual psychic faculty." Erik stated.

"She is receiving messages from some unknown but actively helpful outside source." Xavier explained.

"What sort of messages?"

Explaining that took some time. By the end of it, McCoy looked as though he had an untreated case of athelete's foot fungus which he couldn't scratch in public. "She won't start talking to inanimate objects in public, will she?"

"No. She's quite aware of how she comes across. However, if they tell her to do something immediately, she may respond…eccentrically." Xavier told him

"And you're sure she's sane?"

"Yes. She is coherent, she knows right from wrong, and is fully competent." Erik was actively annoyed by that time.

The professor nodded. "That is correct."

"That's a relief. Hmm," McCoy's expression grew thoughtful. "If there was nothing around with an animal face—you said it seems they only talk through animal faces—nothing could speak to her, could it?"

"One never knows when one will come across an animal face. In court, there are often eagles about—topping flagpoles, on seals and emblems. You could hardly remove all of them." Xavier pointed out.

"That's unfortunate."

"You're insulting her intelligence." Erik protested. "She wouldn't reveal what's going on with her voices—even unintentionally."

Hank was still ignoring him. "Well. Taking all of this into consideration, I will say, guardedly, that the outlook is good. I could hardly have chosen a better person to take this into court."

"Why do you say that?' asked the professor, curious.

"Demographics. She's female, over forty, college educated but from the central US, with the right background—father a blue collar worker, foreman of a Chrysler plant. That alone puts her in the majority. She's also heterosexual, has no criminal record, and although she is a businesswoman, it's in a traditionally feminine occupation—knitting. If she ran a mail order company selling 'adult toys' to the Sapphic community, we could never sail this boat., but people will look at Grace Engstrom and identify with her."

"I would think so." said the professor.

"She's attractive, which always helps. Nothing catches the American imagination like beauty—unless it's scandal. That's my one concern. It isn't the stigma it once was, but she is pregnant out of wedlock. Single mothers are a growing demographic, though…Where is the father in all this? Has he abandoned her in her hour of need?"

_I will not be ignored any longer._ "He has not." Erik stated, definitively.

For the first time, Dr. Henry McCoy looked directly at him, his eyes widening with horror as he realized what Magneto was implying.

"You mean?..." he asked.

"I am the most likely candidate, yes." _Is it wrong to enjoy this so much?_

The Beast let out a sound that was half-groan, half howl of despair, and started banging his head on the desk. "I knew this was too good to be true!" he agonized.


	22. Tainted Love

"Henry, please. That's counterproductive." Xavier shook his head.

The blue-furred man placed both hands flat on the desk and raised his head so his chin was just above the surface of it, his eyes blazing. "It relieves my emotions, and believe me, I need an outlet. Of all the potential fathers in the world…"

"And what precisely do you mean by that?" bristled Erik. _There is nothing that says I must stay here and let him insult us both._

"What do I mean? What do I mean?" the Beast repeated. "I mean if you rescued the President's baby granddaughter from a burning building people would assume you engineered the incident in its entirety! You taint Ms. Engstrom by association. If a hint, a whisper, the merest insinuation of your relationship were to get out, everyone from the man on the street to the Supreme Court would dismiss her, and her case, as 'just another plot of that mutant-terrorist, Magneto'!"

"My amnesty—." Erik began. _Taint her? He should ask her if she feels tainted. That's not the impression I got, either that night or earlier today!_

"Your amnesty was granted based upon the inhumane treatment you received at the hands of Stryker. It forgives what you did, but it doesn't erase it from memory. And you were warned that you'd better keep your nose spotlessly clean!"

"I keep my nose rather cleaner than you keep yours, which, it seems to me, is turning a trifle brown!" _Squealing sycophant!_

"Oh." Hank growled. "If you're going to stoop to scatological insults, then let _me_ say—."

The Professor interceded with a telepathic communication. 'This is precisely why I had Jean, Scott and Ororo take Ms. Engstrom around the school, so that the shouting might take place without her.'

Once he had their attention, he continued out loud, "Please, remember that when I get headaches, they're communicable. Henry, Ms. Engstrom's voices have told her to say nothing to anyone about the identity of her child's father—not even that he's a mutant."

"That is the first sensible thing to do in connection with that subject. The second is for her to sever all connections with **_him_** until the trial is over." McCoy stabbed a finger in Magneto's direction.

"You may tell her so, if you wish." Erik returned, icily, "but her voices are in favor of us staying together." _Xavier's pup shall not part us. The voices know more than they tell. They know she is Maeve._

"Very convenient, these voices," the Beast grumbled.

"Considering that they saved her life last night, yes, they are." Magneto returned.

"Rather too convenient. I wonder precisely what is behind them." Hank glowered at him.

"Not I, I assure you." Erik matched him glower for glower. _How dare he?_

"Do tell." The Beast's voice dripped venom. "I don't believe it." Then his face changed. "Jean?" His face twitched in concentration for several seconds. "Call Vera? But…All right, just to prove my point."

He pulled out his cellphone, raising his eyebrows at the other two men. "A stuffed moose head in the attic just told Ms. Engstrom to tell me to call Vera now. Right now. Jean passed it along. Vera and I dated a long time ago. A very long time…" He punched several buttons on his phone. "It's ringing. No answer…Oh. Hello. It's Hank. Oh, no, no reason, I just…" He took the phone away from his ear. "She just cried out, 'Oh, God,' and dropped the phone."

"Wait." Professor Xavier said.

"Thank you, Charles." Erik said, touched. "I'll overlook your lack of support just now."

"As it happens, I believe Henry made some excellent points—even if he did express himself too strongly."

"Hmmm." _Of course I did not taint her… not personally, and she's very happy about the baby… as am I, but if our_ _relationship compromises her credibility…No. It is more important that we be together. It will work itself out somehow._

The Beast waited. Several minutes passed before he said, "Vera? What happened?...She did? You were…Right where you were working. I see. Well, you're welcome. I'll gladly be your guardian angel any day…No, I understand. I'll call you soon. Bye."

He folded his phone up and put it away, then looked from Xavier to Magneto. "Vera had been gardening in front of her house when I called. An elderly woman who lives up the street was out in her car. She's eighty-four or so. She mistook the gas pedal for the brake pedal, and ran up over the curb into Vera's yard, at about ninety miles an hour. She only stopped when she bottomed out her car on an ornamental rock and hit the neighbor's garage. Vera said the car went right through the shrubbery where she was pruning. If I hadn't called right then, she would have been killed.

"Who or what are Ms. Engstrom's voices?" McCoy finished, plaintively.

"We don't know." The Professor said, his voice very gentle. "I think—or thought—they were a form of precognition manifesting itself in an odd fashion. Erik thinks they are a form of racial memory working backward through time from her descendants. Storm believes they're minor gods or nature spirits. Ms. Engstrom doesn't know, and they aren't telling."

Erik took over. "You don't have the entire picture yet, Dr. McCoy. I came here because I have a personal interest, but I am staying here because if Ms. Engstrom is to succeed in her lawsuit she will need your help. And you will need my help, the help of everyone who follows me, and everyone I can recruit. If we are to see mutantkind achieve legal equality, we must all compromise. If we are to survive, we must work together.

"Because her voices say we have until her baby is due—which is the first week of April—to get the Mutant Registration Act rescinded and anti-discrimination laws enacted. Or we are facing certain extermination." Erik concluded_. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it!_

The Beast looked at him, aghast. "By the first week of April? We'll be lucky to get a court date before then, let alone a ruling! That's only six and a half months away. How are we supposed to do it?"

"I have no idea." Grace stood in the door. "But they're saying not to worry about it, so I think we should just go ahead and get ready. What's the first thing that has to be done?"


	23. Tactics

A/N: Robert Angevin is not mine—he's on loan from Gevaisa, who says I can use him as long as he's kept thoroughly snarky. This isn't her Minion-verse, but she says he exists in all times and places. Whatever you say, Gev…

* * *

"Please come in," the Professor invited, "and that goes for all of you. Scott, Jean, Ororo—I suspect this is about to become a strategy session. Find yourselves seats. Ms. Engstrom, this is Dr. Henry McCoy, who recommended us to extricate you today." 

He was large, furry, and dark blue, but Grace was expecting that. "How do you do?" he asked, while he glanced right at her midsection.

"Fine, thank you." She smiled. "I won't be showing in an obvious way for some months yet."

"Oh, I beg your pardon." He was flustered.

"It's all right." She slipped into the chair next to Erik's. He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, bringing the inside of her wrist to his lips for a fleeting kiss. _If he isn't planning on knocking on my door tonight, I know nothing at all about men,_ she thought. _And when he does…I had better take these sensors off my forehead beforehand, as I expect the readout on the monitor here will be **quite** easy to interpret._

"The first step is to find you an attorney—unless you have someone already." said Xavier.

"Not someone who would be up to this case." she replied.

Mc Coy nodded. "I have someone in mind. His name is Robert Angevin, and he's quite the character. Looks like an archangel, but judging by his tenacity and venom when on a case, you'd swear he has pit bull and black widow spider in his ancestry. In legal circles, he's known as 'the Prince of Sharkness'."

"Why would he want to take her case?" Erik asked. "Is he a mutant?"

"No—but his eighteen-month-old son, who he loves ferociously, is. He'll take it. Let me see, it's Friday afternoon, but not yet five. I'll try him."

McCoy pulled out a phone. He left a message at the first number he called, and got the man himself at the second number. "Mr. Angevin? This is Dr. McCoy. How are you? Good, good. I'm calling because I have a case here you might find of interest. I can't get into any more detail over the phone, not at this time…Monday will be good."

Professor Xavier said, softly, "Have him come here."

"Can you come out to meet her? Great. The address is 1407 Greymalkin Lane…" He rattled off the rest. "Ten in the morning it is, then. Bye, and give my regards to Dr. Uzzano."

He hung up, and said, "There. That's taken care of."

"Do you know what Angevin will want as a retainer?" Erik asked.

"No." was McCoy's answer. "Ms. Engstrom, how are you situated financially?"

"I would say I'm fairly well off. My mortgage is paid off, and the house is worth about five hundred thousand. I have some investments, and with those plus my savings, I think I'm worth about two million, all told. My only outstanding debt is a home equity loan which I took out to buy my car. I still owe about fifty thousand on it."

McCoy's eyebrows rose, and the entire room looked at her with a new respect. "What was your after-tax income last year, Ms. Engstrom?"

"Two hundred ninety-three thousand and change." she replied. "Between my books and magazine sales, my free-lance design work for various fashion houses and catalogs, and commissions, I do quite well. I'm a corporation of one, my overhead is low, and I'm my only employee."

"Unfortunately, legal fees can eat up savings as mice do cheese." observed the Professor. "Whatever Angevin might charge, we'll find some way of covering it. You'll be fighting for us all, and it would be unforgivable if you ruined yourself financially to do it."

"Won't there be a settlement at the end?" asked Scott.

"In a case such as this, financial compensation is not what we want." McCoy explained. "We want what is called 'equity'—which is quite different from the sort of equity one has in a house. This equity is a legal ruling, a legal resolution to the case, so whatever you do, Ms. Engstrom, don't accept any money from any of the defendants involved, or sign anything releasing one of them from the suit, no matter how slight their involvement. The court might find that you released them all."

"I won't." she promised. "I understand."

At that moment, the monkey closed his book, tapped on it like an orchestra conductor, and waving a finger in the air, chanted "One, two—a one, two, three, four!"

All three animals broke into song. "Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today…"

It was the Frank Sinatra classic, 'New York, New York.'

However, they were singing it off key.

"I wannnt to be a part of it! New York, New York!"

_I didn't think anything could be more annoying than having them talk to me. I was wrong._

Erik saw her stare, and asked, "A message?"

"No. A musical number." She whispered. "Stop that!"

McCoy's eyebrows frowned, but he went on. "The second thing will be to get you registered legally with the local Board. We can't give them any excuse to claim you're in noncompliance. You must be law-abiding and agreeable. Be there on Monday before they open at nine—you'll be back in plenty of time to meet with Angevin."

"We have the blank paperwork here." Ororo contributed. "You can fill out everything ahead of time, and we'll be there to walk you through it."

"These vagabond shoes…are longing to stray." sang her animals. She ignored them.

"The third thing." Dr McCoy sighed. "Your relationship. I cannot stress how much it must be kept a secret. There is no surer way to lose this case than to have it be known you're involved, and intimately involved at that, with Magneto."

"Ah." She managed. _And how much worse would it be if it were known it was an alcohol-fueled bar pick-up! _

"I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps—." If anything, the animals were straying further off-key as they went.

"It would be for the best if you were to separate until the trial was over, but I understand…?"

The crooners on the table stopped singing long enough to shake their heads and say, "Don't do it. It's together or not at all."

"The, ah, peanut gallery says not to break up." She pointed to them. "No explanation given beyond, 'It's together, or not at all.'"

They went back to their song. "To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap!"

"Your voices. Um. That's the fourth thing." McCoy rubbed his forehead.

"I won't talk to them in public. I won't even acknowledge them, but if they tell me to take the stairs instead of the elevator, I'm going to walk, no matter how many flights it may be." _Of all these people_, she realized, _only Erik has taken my voices seriously from the moment he learned about them._

_I could love him for that alone._

"What happened with Vera?" she asked, hastily, to cover her sudden emotional confusion.

"Because she went to her front porch to answer her cell phone, she narrowly escaped being run over and killed. You didn't know?"

"Uh-uh. The moose head only said, 'Tell him to call Vera, right now.' It didn't even tell me who 'he' was. Jean remembered you knew a Vera, and of course you know what happened from there. I don't know why they didn't specify who you were, when they knew Vera's name, but they're often like that."

"I see. I can hardly argue, when listening to them yields such results, but be extremely discreet."

"Of course you should keep on listening." Erik said. "This gift wasn't given you at random."

"That's not easy when they're singing off-key at me for no apparent reason!"

"If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. It's up to you, New York, New York!" finished the chorus. Then they began the second verse.

"By the way—are you at all a religious person, Ms. Engstrom?" asked the furry blue Secretary for Mutant Affairs.

"No. I was brought up Presbyterian, but I misplaced my faith somewhere. I'm like Mulder from the X-files—I want to believe, but I can't manage it somehow. Why?"

"Interesting. No reason. Those are the most immediate points to cover. Now, next thing to consider is the venue. This will be going straight to Federal Court, because the government is one of the defendants, via the Mutant Registration Act. The question is, where—in Michigan, where your health care provider's office is, or in New York, where Marine StarCare has their national headquarters?"

"It's up to you, New York, New York!" the animals reprised.

"All right, now I know why you're butchering Sinatra. New York it is." She told them. "Now be quiet."

The monkey shrugged and opened his book once more, and the lion made a 'tsk-tsking." sound.

"That's actually what I was going to recommend." McCoy said, surprised. "The docket in Michigan is probably emptier, but New York is a more liberal state, and you'll be more likely to get a fair trial and a friendly jury there. We'll have to trust we can get a good date. You don't know how or where they get their information, do you?"

"Not at all. A lot of Erik's ideas about them ring true for me, somehow—."

The gentleman referred to made a pleased sound.

"—While they have seemingly unlimited knowledge, they don't have the power to affect more than where a piece of paper falls. Whatever needs to be done, I have to do—or get others involved.

"It's as if we—all of mutantkind—are blind, including me, and we're trapped in a building that's on fire. Everything we need to put the fire out is on hand, but even if we tripped over it, we wouldn't know what it was or how to use it. However, there are security cameras everywhere, sending to a remote location where sighted people are monitoring what's going on—but they can't get to us to help, and their only way of communicating with anyone is a single radio tuned to a single headset, which I'm wearing.

"It's an uncomfortable headset, they're speaking in a language I'm not fluent in, and I'm a little dyslexic, but I'm the one wearing it, so they're trying to direct me to get the fire out, with your help. They're doing their best, and I'm doing my best, but the result isn't perfect."

"It isn't perfect yet." corrected Erik. "That was very well put."

"Indeed." agreed Xavier. "Now, it will take some weeks to get your complaint ready for filing, and in that time, we'll have to get our people accustomed to working together effectively and peacefully."

"Yes. I also intend to spend some time recruiting more mutants—with so many people who will need 24 hour surveillance and protection, we'll need every warm body—and perhaps a few of the cold ones—that we can muster." Magneto returned.

"Jean—Scott—Ororo—have you anything to add?" McCoy turned to them.

"Yes. You said earlier, Professor, that we would be working out of multiple locations. Where will they be, and who will be going?" Scott sat forward in his chair.

"Excellent questions, Scott. This will be one location, certainly, but we'll need a home base in Michigan. Ms. Engstrom, as your home is now unoccupied, might we use it?" Xavier turned to her.

"Of course—as long as you don't disturb the neighbors, or make the place unsalable." She opened her purse and brought out the keys. "You'll need to have it cleaned up, and some furniture brought in."

"I propose the people we send should fix it up while they're in residence—it will be their cover story. We'll want to rotate personnel." The professor made a note.

"I suggest Logan should be put in charge of the Michigan operation." Ororo added. "He has the experience in covert work, he has the presence to maintain discipline, and he would make a believable handyman."

"Very good suggestions, Storm." Another note went down on his pad.

"And since the University of Michigan is right there, some of our students could audit classes while they're there—it would give them a taste of college." Scott put in.

"Also good…"

"Now for New York City." Magneto took over. "I own some property there, but it's not residential. It's a warehouse without plumbing or heat. One might make do there for a night—and I have—but it's not suited for long term occupation."

"All these things will work themselves out over time…and speaking of which, it's nearly the dinner hour. I suggest we adjourn for now. Jean, can you show Ms. Engstrom where she'll be spending the night?" Xavier looked to her.

"Sure. We found her a space—the attic in the wing opposite Ororo's. If we get the kids into action tomorrow on the attic, it'll be ready for her to move in on Monday." said the red-headed doctor.

"Very good. This place is like a furniture warehouse—my ancestors never threw anything out, so feel free to rearrange anything that's not in active use by someone."

"Thank you—that's very generous. I think I may bow out of dinner, though. I did eat lunch late, and I just want to lie down for a while." Grace told them. _And I don't really want to eat my meal under the curious eyes of so many people—not tonight. Too much has gone on._

"You are feeling all right?" asked Erik, concerned.

"Yes." She smiled at him. "Just a bit tired."

"Then we'll see you later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning." concluded the professor.


	24. Telling the School

As the door closed behind the two women, Charles Xavier turned to the rest of the group. "Before dinner, we shall call a school assembly, and explain to everyone what is going on, what changes will be taking place over the next few weeks. It would be helpful if you were to speak to them as well, Erik, and lay the foundations of trust."

"As you wish. A united front."

As they went over the main points they would cover, Jean and Grace were making their way through the halls of the school. Grace stopped, her arms full of lamb and monkey. "Can we swing by wherever my things are? I salvaged some clothing and toiletries from the wreckage, and I'd rather not wear these for a third day."

"I would have thought you'd be set for life, with all that knitwear." commented Jean.

"It's things like underwear, a robe, and a nightgown that I want—although I imagine I can assemble an outfit for tomorrow from my knits."

"If there's anything you need, you only have to ask—we keep stuff on hand for those students who arrive with only the clothes on their backs."

"Thank you. I'll remember that, but I don't suppose you have maternity bras on hand."

"No, there you have me. The hangar's down this way…"

Jean helped her carry her bags up to a fresh, crisp guest room which smelled of dried lavender. It had its own bathroom, and Grace took a shower before slipping into her nightgown, and then into bed. _What's happened to me?_ she wondered, as she looked up at the ceiling. _Too much in too short a time. I hope tomorrow is quieter._

* * *

Down in the rec room, rumors seethed. Grace had been introduced to every student they met as they went over the mansion from cellar to attic and back again, and now the room buzzed like a hive.

"She's a—how do you say it?" Kurt Wagner said. "A serious babe. An older babe, but a babe nonetheless."

"Yeah, well, she's Magneto's babe." Jubilee said. "Rogue! Tell Kurt what you told Kitty and me earlier. About what she was doing in the kitchen."

"All raht." she said in her drawl. "I was there gettin' some juice after Danger Room practice, and I saw them making themselves some sandwiches. I stopped in my tracks, cause I couldn't believe it, I mean, Magneto, raht there in the kitchen. And he says 'Hello, Rogue', like he was almost apologizing. And she all of a sudden looks back behind her like somebody said something, only there wasn't anybody there.

"'No!' she whispered. "I can't go up and hug her, no matter what you say. She looks like she's going to cut and run already.' I looked at where she was looking, and there were the fish potholders. She was talking to the potholders. 'No. I can't.' she said to them. Then she turns to me. 'You don't need a hug, do you?'

"I was just that surprised, I nearly spilled the juice. 'No, not right now.' I told her.

"She turned back to them and said. 'See? She doesn't want a hug. Let me eat in peace.'

"I can tell you I put the juice away and backed out of there real quick."

"What was Magneto doing while she was talking to the potholders?"

"Looking for the fancy mustard. He looked over at her and said, 'They won't even let you have a sandwich, will they?' Like he was taking her seriously. Like she wasn't talking to things that don't talk!"

"I think it makes perfect sense." Kitty said. "I mean, everybody knows Mystique is poison, so the only way he could get somebody nicer is if she has mental problems."

"Shhh—the Prof's coming!" Jubilee said.

He was not alone. Magneto was right behind him, followed by the Beast, trailed by Scott, Ororo, and finally, Dr. Grey.

"Good evening," Professor Xavier said, as the other five adults arranged themselves beside and behind him. "Before we go in to dinner, I want to share with you some momentous news, news which can make all the difference in our lives we hope for.

"You know that Dr. McCoy asked us, on behalf of the President of the United States, to go in and rescue Ms. Engstrom from a threatening situation this morning.

"Unbeknownst to any of us, Ms. Engstrom's mutation was discovered during a screening for the genes which indicate a greater risk for breast cancer. That discovery was made illegally, and in violation of both the Genetic Privacy Laws and the regulations in the Mutant Registration Act.

"This means she can, and will, sue the persons and corporation responsible. You will wonder how this affects us. It affects us because she will, at the same time, challenge the Mutant Registration Act for causing her harm.

"I will tell you now that should Ms. Engstrom succeed, the Act will be repealed, and anti-discrimination laws drawn up. We will enjoy the same rights, protections and privileges as any other minority group.

"However, this cannot happen without our help, and by our help, I mean the help of all the mutants who we can enlist in this fight. For the sake of the greater good, we are joining forces with Magneto and his followers."

The ensuing hubbub drowned out his next sentence. "Please! I ask you to wait until later to discuss this amongst yourselves. We need their help because there is too much involved here, too much for us to handle on our own, or for them to handle on their own.

" Ms. Engstrom is the only person who can take this case to court, and it will be a long and grueling fight. We must support and assist her in every way we can. That help ranges from making her feel welcome and valued here, to defending her life and limb. She is doubly vulnerable because she is expecting a child.

"More than that, we will have to watch and safeguard her family, the witnesses and their families, those of her lawyer, and possibly those of the jury as well—anyone who might be in danger, anyone who could be used as a hostage. There will very likely be attempts to destroy important evidence—we shall have to keep computer records from being erased, offices from being burned or bombed. This will be a round-the-clock effort, carried out from several locations, and it will last for months.

"We may need to call on the powers and skills of those still in training to help directly in this effort, while others will find themselves providing support in other ways—organizing meals, manning phones and taking messages, making up kits for those in the field. We are all in this together.

"That means there will be a lot of unfamiliar faces around, and the faces of those who were adversaries not so long ago—Magneto and the Brotherhood for a start. He and I have put aside our differences that we might work together effectively, and we expect every one of you to do the same. Erik, I believe you have a few words for them also."

"Yes. Let me begin by saying I am not the enemy. I understand you may have misgivings about having me in your midst and following my orders. You need not fear. I will not order you to kill anyone, I will not ask you to participate in any acts of terrorism, and I will not harm or endanger you unnecessarily. Necessarily, in this case, means that you will be called upon to defend the lives of others—first and foremost, Ms. Engstrom—at risk of your own.

"Your Professor and I have always agreed over our goal—the survival of mutantkind. Our differences have been over how to achieve that goal, and we have let it create a divide amongst our own.

"Now we know we cannot do that any longer. If we are to survive, we must compromise and work together. So must you. In the time between now and when Ms. Engstrom files her complaint in court, my followers will be coming here so that you might learn to work together and get along. I will be actively seeking out and recruiting other mutants as well, who will join you here.

"That will be the time to resolve your personal differences or learn to set them aside for the duration, without any sort of fighting. When you are in the field, whatever your role or task, conflict among you will not be tolerated, by your teachers, the Professor, or myself. This is deadly serious. You will face severe punishment if you violate that rule, if you are insubordinate, inattentive, or incompetent by way of retaliating for being forced to work together.

"If a key witness comes to harm or important evidence lost because carrying on your own petty squabbles is more important to you, it will go hard with you. If Ms. Engstrom comes to harm as a result—I promise you they'll have difficulty finding enough of you to identify using DNA. Without her, there is no case. Without her, there is no_ future_."

"There will be more to follow in the next few days." The Beast stepped in. "In the meantime, everything that is going on is to be kept in strictest confidence. Tell no one outside the school, not even rumors or gossip. Ms. Engstrom's success—and ours---will depend on it."

"And now let's go in to dinner." concluded the professor.


	25. Playing Musical Beds

Someone passing Grace's guestroom during dinner would have heard her say this:

"Stop it. Please. Stop it. Shut up!"

"This is what cults do, you know. Deprive their converts of sleep so their judgment is skewed and they'll be ready to do whatever they're told. Like drink the cyanide-flavored Kool-aid. Is that what you're working up to? No, because then I wouldn't be around to do your bidding."

"Is there a leader I can speak to? Is one of you in charge of the others?"

"I can and _will_ throw all of you out the window. I mean it."

"Just tell me what the plan is. I'm assuming there is one. I'll do anything. Anything! Just tell me, get it over with, and stop singing."

"What were those lyrics? What did you just sing about Erik? And why do you sound like Paul McCartney all of a sudden?"

"All right. Fine. I'm going to go sleep somewhere else. Sing to each other all night long if you want to. See if I care."

* * *

Some time later:

_If she doesn't want to relive Australia tonight, that would be all right. It's not as if I'm a priapic seventeen-year-old. I can share a bed with her just for the pleasure of companionship, do no more than sleep, and not feel slighted. She might not want company of any kind, however, and if that is the case, I'll bid her good night cheerfully, and go to my own room, none the worse for it. _

_The bed in there will seem vast and glacial if she sends me off to it, however._

Erik paused before Grace's door, torn between knocking and not knocking. _If I don't disturb her, I can claim it was out of courtesy…but Jean Grey did give me these crackers for her._

He knocked. There was no answer. He waited a moment, knocked again, and asked softly, "Grace…?"

Nothing.

_If she's sleeping that deeply, I don't want to disturb her rest. If she's not asleep, if she's lying there listening, but she doesn't want to acknowledge she's awake—I don't want to know that_. He turned around and entered his room, a faint gloom settling on his spirit like a fine layer of ash.

Flicking on the light switch, he saw—Grace curled up in his bed. She rolled over, blinking at the light, shielding her eyes with a hand. "I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all. In fact, I was just knocking on your door. But why are you here?"

"As soon as I lay down, they started singing. This time, it was…camp songs, at least to start. The one about 'Big Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts.' I nearly threw up. Then the one about being chased by a bear and jumping into a tree to escape. 'I've got a Baby Bumblebee' was after that. 'On top of Spaghetti'. 'Kum By Yah.' Dozens of them."

She sat up, the bedclothes falling to her waist, revealing a thin pink nightgown which had all the qualities of frosted glass—it obscured details, but revealed shapes and colors.

"I tried exiling them to the bathroom. I piled towels on top of them. It didn't help. They sounded muffled, but they sang louder. I threatened to throw them out the window. I pleaded, I tried to bargain, I surrendered and offered to do anything, anything at all, if they would only tell me. It was when they began this song---Did you ever rob a bank with Titanium Man on Main Street at a quarter to three in some town somewhere, possibly with the Crimson Dynamo tagging along?"

"Good God, no."

"Then I have no idea what they were getting at, or where they got the song from. Half an hour ago, I said, 'Fine, if you won't shut up, I'll go sleep somewhere else and leave you here to sing to yourselves.' They wouldn't shut up even then, so I looked in here, and saw your helmet on the dresser. Please don't insist I go back there."

"I would never be so churlish. However, I can't say my gallantry extends to taking your room instead. I prefer this one. You are welcome to stay, however.", he said, straight-faced but for a corner of his mouth which insisted on curving upward in pure happiness.

The smile she gave him was the same one she gave him when he suggested drinking the champagne upstairs in the hotel. "I don't know how I can thank you."

"Now that is a lie if I ever heard one," he mock-chided her, taking off his jacket and hanging it up. "Oh—Jean asked me to give you these."

He took the baggie of crackers from his jacket pocket and went over to hand them to her across the bed. "She says that if you eat them before you get out of bed, they should help with the nausea."

"That was very thoughtful of her." Grace took them, placing the bag on the night table next to her, and watched as he took his cufflinks out and placed them on the dresser. "And thank you, too, of course."

"Oh, it was a terrible imposition, carrying four ounces of crackers all the way up here." He unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off, aware that she was watching him. Watching and smiling. _This is more intimate than any embrace, however fevered and lustful,_ he realized. _This is the intimacy of marriage_. Something painful turned over in his chest.

_This is only the second time I've ever met her, yet this feels natural, like water flowing into water. I don't know her, I don't know if the child she's carrying is mine, yet I stand here, with my back to her, exposed and vulnerable. This is sheer folly!_

He had almost missed what she just said, "Did I miss anything?"

"Charles called a school assembly, where he broke the news of your impending lawsuit and how we shall be working together to support it. My part was to assure them of my sincerity and of how serious we are. I think you would have been proud of me. I only made one death threat."

He glanced at her reflection in the mirror to see how she took it: her jaw dropped slightly, but the corners of her mouth turned up, and she laughed. His shoes went over by the bathroom, and he started to empty his pockets on to the dresser top. He removed his wallet, and paused. _Might as well do this now._

He opened it and selected a credit card. "It occurred to me," he told her, turning to face her. "that you should not use your own cards when you shop, or have packages delivered here in your own name. It compromises your safety and privacy. I have a solution. You'll find that no card reader will get so much as a beep from it—for some unaccountable reason, the magnetic stripes on all my cards go blank within days after I receive them. However, for on-line shopping, happily that is not an issue."

"That must be inconvenient. No money cards, huh?" She took the card and read the name on it. "Michael Xavier?"

"A legal identity Charles set up for me. Erik Magnus Lensherr may be a notorious character, but 'Michael Xavier's' name is as pure as the driven snow."

"That saying puzzled me throughout my childhood and into high school, because driven snow—snow that had been driven through by cars and snow plows—was quite clearly dirtier than untouched snow. Finally I found out that it meant 'driven by the wind'—newly fallen, in other words. I don't have my purse with me, but tomorrow I'm going to write you out a check for five thousand. Keep track of what I spend and tell me when I need to top up, all right?"

"That isn't necessary, Grace. To put it frankly, I am rather better off than you are, and I want to do this for you."

"I—You're a proud man, I know that, but if there was anything I hated about my marriage, it was questions like, 'What did you buy at Luxury Linens that cost six hundred dollars?' Between what I have to replace and baby-related expenses to come, I'm going to be spending an appalling amount of money. This way will be less messy all around. You won't feel as though I'm taking advantage of you, and I won't be jumpy and defensive."

_There is nothing that says I have to cash her check._ "All right."

"Thank you." The smile she gave him was relieved.

He finished undressing and slipped into bed next to her. Her arms went around him, and she kissed him as if she thought it was a very good idea.

_All right, I might not be a priapic seventeen-year-old any longer, but there are compensations…_

"Perhaps", he murmured before talking became a terrible distraction, "this was why they kept on singing."

"Wha—What?"

"They were intentionally driving you over here…"


	26. Girl Needs A Boy

_How nicely we fit together_, she thought afterward. _This **was** a good idea. I ought to thank my menagerie tomorrow._ The thought made her chuckle to herself—just a quake of her diaphragm, without sound.

He felt it, though, as his arm draped over her, his hand resting on her midsection. "What's made you laugh?"

"Just thinking I should thank my little friends tomorrow. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't. I don't like this new development. I was just getting used to being told what to do, and now they've decided to annoy me into doing what they want…I think they enjoy driving me crazy. They must think it's funny."

That made him chuckle. "I must say I enjoy getting you worked up."

She jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow, but gently.

He responded by pulling her closer against him. "Tomorrow I'm going to my headquarters to collect the rest of my followers, not to mention my things. I'll be leaving soon after breakfast—provided that the Toad is conscious—and I expect to be gone the better part of the day. I should be back by the dinner hour, however."

"The plan here is to clear out my attic. Or is it going to be our attic?" Her voice sounded tentative in her ears.

"It is if you say it is." He sounded somber. "That is what I want. But as I also want you to be happy, perhaps I am not the person to ask."

"You mean my little friends? They seem to have cast their votes in favor of it."

"I meant you yourself. Would you want to live with me if they said neither yes nor no?"

"I don't know. If this situation were at all normal, if there were no prejudice against mutants and we simply happened to reconnect now, without lives and the outcome of a trial at stake—I would want to get to know you better first. I'd want to meet that thirty-five year old daughter you mentioned, and the rest of your family, if you have any others."

She rolled over so that she was facing him. "That you would so casually dump a woman who had been your companion for some time in favor of another would also send off a lot of warning bells. I'm not saying it would be a deal breaker, but I would be quite cautious about getting too involved too quickly. I'd still sleep with you…"

That made him laugh. "That's good to hear."

"Well, there's no putting toothpaste back in the tube. Once you start having sex, you keep on having sex until you either break up or get bored. This scenario also leaves out your criminal history. I'm still having difficulty processing that."

"Does it leave out your pregnancy?"

"No, that's a factor, but saying any more than that would be telling. I can't do that. That's all intellectual, though. I would want to...but I would want to be sure first. The brain is there to put the brakes on the heart and the body. Now_ you're_ smiling."

"Think over what you just said, and you'll know why."

_I brought my heart into it. And I did say 'yes.'_ "What if you keep this room down here, officially, and we try living under the same roof to see how it works?"

"It's a start, I suppose. Yes, I accept that." He leaned across the foot of space between them, and kissed her.

"I just hope I'd give the same answer if we weren't both naked and you weren't close enough to touch me." she groused.

That made him laugh. "At my age, you could hardly pay me a better compliment—I'd like to tell my children about you."

"Children, plural?"

"Yes. I have two children, two living, that is…My eldest daughter died in childhood."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you…Now is the time to talk about the living, however. Their names are Pietro and Wanda, and they're twins. Both thirty-five, of course and both mutants. His power is super-speed, and she causes disasters, rather like a living embodiment of Murphy's Law."

"I've known people who can cause disasters on a regular basis without any mutant powers whatsoever."

"Hers are somewhat different. They can be focused and specialized."

"Where do they live?"

"In New York. He's divorced from his wife, Crystal—she has custody of my only grandchild, his daughter Luna. Despite Crystal's heritage—she's one of the Inhumans—somehow they managed to have a Sapient child. She's adorable, though."

"Do you have a picture of her?"

"Of course…" He got his wallet.

"You really are a grandfather." she said, looking at the photo of a dainty pre-school princess. _He speaks of her with affection, even if she isn't a mutant. That's good._

"Her name suits her—with that white-gold hair and green eyes, she looks like a creature of moonlight."

"I hardly ever get to see her. She and her mother live on the moon. Crystal isn't too keen on my visits."

She closed the wallet and gave it back to him. "How do you get along with Pietro and Wanda?"

"Apologetically." He put the wallet on the nightstand. "I didn't meet them until they were in their teens. Their mother left me after our oldest daughter died, without telling me she was expecting again, and she died right after their birth. I never saw her again. I didn't know they existed."

"I'm so sorry. That hardly seems an adequate word."

"It was a very long time ago. This was in Europe. Pietro and Wanda were in danger of being killed by a mob, and I rescued them."

"I see a pattern emerging. That's how we happened to meet again."

"Quite so. You'll find this difficult to believe once you see Pietro, but I had no idea they were my children. Mind you, the resemblance has grown as he's gotten older, so he didn't look quite as much like me, but Wanda looks like her mother—and like mine. I can look at her and say which feature she got from whom.

"After I saved their lives, I—I didn't treat them badly. They ate the same food I did, whether it was good or bad. They lived as well as I. I didn't abuse them, but I held what I had done for them over their heads every hour. They owed me, I told them. Anything but unquestioning obedience was miserable ingratitude on their parts. I threatened to throw them out with only the clothes on their backs, and let the humans have them."

"That's cold."

"I was cold, then. Eventually they made connections in the hero community who helped them get…helped them to escape from me." There was a shadowy anguish in his voice when he spoke of it.

"That was before I entered my second childhood in a rather unusual fashion, however."

"Oh?"

"I was reduced back to babyhood for a while. It's quite a long story, but after a time which I remember indistinctly, I was, er, zapped back to adulthood. It's impossible to calculate my physical age now, as a result. Skin, sixty-seven years old or so, heart and lungs, somewhere in the thirties, bones—better than they were before, fewer aches in the joints."

_That explains a few things..."_I might make a comment about your stamina, but I won't. The conversational thread might get lost."

He smiled. "Very well—to return to Pietro and Wanda, my stint as a child did seem to have a lasting effect. I wanted to learn what had happened to my wife after she left me; I investigated, and found out what I have told you.

"At first they were furious. They wanted nothing at all to do with me for a very long time. I told them I would never have treated them that way if I had known—Wanda replied that treating anyone's children as I had treated them was wrong. A much-needed lesson; I treat people with more respect now.

"It took some years, but they take my calls—not with any great enthusiasm, but they do take them. We have some sort of relationship. Their personal lives haven't helped—Pietro's divorced, as I said, and Wanda is—widowed. After a fashion."

"How can one be widowed 'after a fashion'?"

"He was an android. He was reclaimed by the government, and deactivated for a while. When he was returned to service, they left out the emotion circuits."

"Oh. That's…Um. I'm sure it must be very difficult for her."

"It is."

"Girl needs a boy." It was a dopey, comically deep voice—one of her Voices, she could tell. Grace sat bolt upright.

"What?" Erik asked.

"There's something in this room with an animal face. One of my little friends just spoke to me."

"What did it say?"

"It said, 'Girl needs a boy.' I'm assuming he means Wanda. Where is it? I'm throwing it out the window."

A search of the room turned up a news magazine with a political cartoon on the cover, buried in a stack of other periodicals. It was of a donkey holding out a valentine to an unregistered voter. "Girl needs a boy." it repeated.

"So you don't even have to see the animal for it to send you a message." Erik scratched his chin as they looked at it.

"Apparently not. Why would the voices in my head want your daughter to start dating?"

"Are you sure that's what they want?"

"Well, we were talking about Wanda—."

The donkey nodded. "Girl needs a boy."

"And when I said her name just now, it nodded and repeated, 'Girl needs a boy.'"

"I don't know, but in this case, I think they should mind their own business."

"That may not be an option." Grace looked at him with concern.

"I'm not sure Wanda would take it at all well if I told her your 'little friends' wanted her to start dating again. Or if you told her, once you and she met."

"I see your point. This one doesn't seem to be an emergency, so—." Grace took the magazine, strode purposefully to the window, opened it, and sent the magazine flying.

"Girl needs a boyyyyyy!" faded into the night as it disappeared from view.

She shut the window hastily. "The nights are getting chilly. I've got goosebumps."

"And I can see every last one of them. The only solution is to get back under the covers."

She did, and he began to rub warmth back into her limbs, which, of course, soon became another activity.

At a very bad moment, someone banged on the wall behind the bed from the next room. "Whoever you are, could you keep it _down_?"

Erik paused in what he was doing. "Callisto?"

"Oh," said the voice. "It's you. Um. Sorry." A moment later, the girl said, very distinctly, "Eeeew!"

"What was that about?" Grace asked, because he broke into laughter.

"I will tell you later…"

* * *

_A/N:_ Since the movieverse leaves out Wanda and Pietro, Erik's daughter and son, I have had to improvise with some comicverse history. Hope you like it. 


	27. Breakfast

A/N: There is a last name in this chapter which sounds...bad. It is a real last name, and all I can say is, I feel sorry for anyone who has to go through life with it.

* * *

Magneto woke, and smiled to himself. Brilliant sunlight poured in the windows of the guestroom, making the bedclothes blindingly white. At his back, he could feel Grace, warm, solid and not a dream. _I don't usually enjoy carrying out my plans as much as this._

He rolled over to look at her face. Lovemaking and sleep had smoothed out the strain and washed away the worried look, reducing the purple shadows under her eyes to a mere smudge of lavender. Rosy color bloomed in her cheeks, and as he watched, she drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes.

"Good morning." she said, drowsily.

"A very good morning." he replied. "I have a question to ask you. Why does such a beautiful woman bother with makeup? You don't need it."

She smiled. "Flatterer. That's good…My eyelashes disappear. "

She did have sandy, pale eyelashes. "Eyelashes. What are eyelashes compared to the rest?"

"You're laying it on thick for this hour of the morning…Let's see what you think in a few minutes, when I get up. I'll turn greenish-white and spend the next ten minutes sitting on the edge of the tub with my forehead against the wall, waiting for the nausea to pass."

"Don't forget, you have those crackers Jean sent."

"So I do…" She leaned over and started munching them. "Can I trouble you for a glass of water? These are awfully dry."

He got her one, and went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he returned, she was looking around the room with a puzzled expression on her face. "Do you know where my nightgown went?"

"It's probably caught up in the bed linens. How are the crackers working?"

"They're helping. Ah, you were right. Here it is." She slipped it over her head and put on a robe. "I'm going to go shower and dress." She kissed him on the cheek, and went.

About twenty minutes later, he knocked on her door. "Grace?"

"Come in." She wearing a beige satin bra and a pair of slacks, and she was looking at her waist in the mirror. "Two days ago these fit perfectly. Yesterday, they were snug, and today they're a little tight. It's isn't fat, it's the baby." She sounded happy.

"You'll be the only one who can tell, I assure you."

"I'm not insecure, I'm thrilled about this. I waited twenty years for this to happen. He needs room to move—even if he's only the size of a bean right now, according to the book I read."

"Are you hoping for a boy, then?" he asked.

"My little friend the lamb told me it's a boy—and a mutant." She shed the slacks and reached for a pair of faded, threadbare khakis.

The smile which broadened his mouth and stretched his face until it ached was completely involuntary. _A mutant! It is, it is a mutant! He is a mutant…_

She caught him smiling, and asked, "Is that because it's a boy, or because it's a mutant?"

"Because it's a mutant, of course! What do you take me for? One of the many things the mutant gene does is to eliminate sexism. There is no inequality of strength between the sexes—between individuals, perhaps, but many mutant women are as powerful as—or more powerful—than men."

"I never thought of that." She pulled a short sleeved turtleneck over her head, white flecked with beige.

"Is that one of yours?" he asked. It looked professional—there was nothing awkward or lumpy about it. At the same time, his sense for metal told him 'Adamantium. About a mile away and getting closer.' _Ah. Logan has come home. _It did not worry him.

"Uh-huh—an old one." She picked up a brush and sleeked her shining hair. "I'm dressed for getting dirty today."

"Well, be careful not to over do it. Let them do all the straining and heavy lifting."

"I will." She smiled at him. "I'm starving—what about you?"

"I have a good appetite myself this morning." They went downstairs to the dining hall, where an array of breakfast foods was laid out buffet style.

Grace looked over the various foodstuffs, the chafing dishes keeping scrambled eggs and bacon warm, the loaves of bread waiting by the toaster, the line of cereal boxes and pitchers of milk and juice. "You don't suppose they have chocolate pudding, do they?"

"For breakfast?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Food cravings." she explained.

"Of course." As it turned out, they didn't, but she was willing to settle for chocolate milk instead. As they filled their plates, Grace and Erik greeted various students and staff, making their way along the tables until they reached the end.

"Where would you like to sit?" he asked her.

"Somewhere away from the cereal boxes."

"You have an aversion to things which go 'snap, crackle, and pop'?"

"Child-targeted cereals often have animal mascots. I'd like to eat breakfast in peace. If they need to get a message to me, I'm sure they can come up with a way."

"I see. Over by the windows?"

"All right." They sat, and began on their meal.

"In the interest of getting to know one another better," Erik opened the conversation, "is Engstrom your maiden name or your married name? I've no idea."

"It's my maiden name." She flashed him that impish grin. "I never took Jack—my ex's—name. Not so much out of feminism, as because he had a horrible name. Too horrible."

"What on earth could it have been?"

"Stenchcum."

"…Would you care to spell that?"

"S-t-i-n-c-h-c-u-m. You understand why I felt couldn't take it."

"Completely." A shadow fell across their table. "I never actually asked you if I could tell Pietro and Wanda about you. May I?"

"Will they keep the secret?" She drank milk and wiped away the mustache.

"When it comes to anything concerning me, they never tell anyone anything whatsoever. I'm going for another cup of coffee—can I get you anything?"

"Some more of the fresh pineapple would be lovely. And yes. You can tell them."

He was returning to the table when the doors at the end of the hall burst open, and a furious Logan strode in. "All right, Mags. I've had about enough of you."

"Logan," Charles said, warningly. "You don't know the whole story."

"I know I was coughing up dirty water for hours. I know I nearly flamin' drowned, is all." He crossed the intervening space with angry strides.

"Logan—." Jean got up and hurried to head him off. "Things are different now—."

"They're going to be real different in a minute here—."

Erik set his coffee and the bowl of pineapple down on the table. "That is Logan." He explained to Grace. "If his wits were as sharp as his claws, he would be a truly formidable adversary. As it is—." He locked up all of Logan's joints at the same time. "he doesn't learn very fast. I'm afraid I shall have to forgo that second cup of coffee, my dear. I'm not about to let him go until I'm on my way, as he's too agitated to be reasonable, and leaving him as he is would only distress people and strain the cooperative spirit."

"Then I'll see you tonight." she said, and rose to her feet to kiss him goodbye.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter, Erik goes back to his headquarters, where Pyro will greet him with the words, "It's not my fault.', and Erik will call both his children and break the news. Expect explosions, if only the emotional kind. 


	28. Shocking the Children: Wanda

Pyro was waiting by the landing pad with a worried expression on his face. He was trying to cover it with bravado. "It's not my fault." he stated, defiantly. "I didn't know what she was up to before she did it."

_Mystique_. Erik sighed. "What did she do?"

"Broke a lot of stuff, set fire to your bed, and shoved a stick of dynamite in the furnace as a parting gift."

_It's just as well I'm not bringing Grace here immediately._ "Was anyone hurt?"

"Nope. She also said you dumped her for somebody who was almost a flatliner."

"She was mistaken. Ms. Engstrom is far from being a flatliner. Her gift is as unique as it is difficult to comprehend." Erik stepped down from the copter and headed for the main building, the younger, shorter man hurrying to keep up.

"What is it?"

"I said it was difficult to comprehend, but if you think of it as a form of precognition, you will have the basic idea."

"She sees the future?"

"Not exactly. I said it was difficult to comprehend."

"But you dumped Mystique for her because she's pregnant, and it's yours." Pyro sounded certain about that.

"This is yet another mistake. It's more complicated than that. And whether it is mine or not is no-one's business but mine and Ms. Engstrom's."

"Then what's going on?" They were making for the assembly hall.

"Let me answer that with another question. Do you intend to marry someday, and have children?"

"What?" There was a look of panic in Pyro's eyes.

"I don't mean now. I mean someday when you are _very, **very**_ old—at least thirty. I was under the impression you were heterosexual, or did I read you wrong?"

"No. I'm straight!"

"You needn't be so defensive, dear boy. It's nothing to me who you like to sleep with. Let us suppose that you do marry one day, and that she is a mutant. As matters stand now, half your children would be mutants, and half sapients. It's a question of genetics. What would you do with the sapients?"

"I—I don't know."

"Do you choose to abort them, to abandon them, to give them up for adoption? Or do you raise them among your other children, worms that will never turn into butterflies like their siblings? Turn your home into a breeding ground for envy and hatred? What would you do?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it."

"Would it not be better if every child born to you was a mutant, assured of his or her gift before they were conceived?"

"Now that you put it that way, yes. And Ms. Engstrom is the key to all that?"

"She might be. However, that is the long range plan." He opened all the steel doors of his fortress simultaneously, and the winds roared through the hallways like a triumphant lion, signaling his followers both that he had returned, and that he wanted them.

"The short term plan is that we are about to join Xavier and work with him and his people to shove a lawsuit down the sapients' throats and make them choke on it."

"What? We're going back there?"

"There is no other way. Remember that I told you Ms. Engstrom's gift was somewhat similar to precognition?"

"Yes…"

His other followers now awaited his revelations. "Listen, and understand…"

* * *

In the Xavier mansion, someone was having a hard time accepting the new order. "Oh, man! I cannot believe you're buying this crap!"

Jean and Ororo led Grace past the closed office door. "Don't mind Logan. He'll get over it." Jean advised her.

"Especially when he learn he'll be in another state most of the time." added Storm.

"How'd you sleep?" Jean asked as they climbed the stairs.

"At first I didn't. My little friends started singing to me, or at me, the moment I lay down, so eventually I had to take refuge in Erik's room—which was what they wanted all along. He didn't mind."

"I'll bet he didn't," murmured Ororo. "No animals in there?"

"Actually, there was one, and now I'm worried about meeting Erik's daughter Wanda because I'm afraid they're going to make me try to fix her up with someone. The voice told me 'Girl needs a boy', and he meant her."

"So you not only have to sue the government and save all of mutantkind, you have to matchmake?" Jean laughed.

"Apparently. I think that's what they want, anyway. I could be wrong."

"Having you around is going to be interesting." Ororo commented. "Your problems are not like anyone else's."

"Tell me about it." Grace sighed.

* * *

_That went well_, Erik thought, as he mounted the stairs to his bedroom. He knew his followers, and he knew their loyalty was largely dependant on his skills as a leader and a speaker_. Let me not be under any illusions. One major catastrophe and they are lost. I will never hold such sway over so many again. _He reached his bedroom door. _Now to see how bad the damage is…_

As he habitually sealed most of his belongings in steel cabinets, the bed and some towels were the only major losses. He shook his head, popped open all his closets and drawers, turned one into a trunk, and started to pack.

While he did so, he slipped on a phone headset, and called Pietro's number. _I might as well multi-task…_

"Hello, Pietro. It's your father."

"Hello, Father."

"How are you?" Erik asked.

"I'm fine."

"And Luna?"

"I saw her Wednesday. She's fine, too."

"Crystal is keeping well, I hope?" Asking after his son's ex was always risky.

"I suppose." Pietro replied. There was an awkward pause before his son asked. "How are you?"

"I'm very well, thank you. I have some news to share with you. I'm thinking of marrying again."

"What?"

"I said I'm thinking of marrying again. Also, Xavier—." It was too late. Pietro had, for whatever reason, hung up.

_I wasn't expecting that reaction. He hasn't hung up in the middle of a call in at least two years. This is quite a setback._ The thought depressed him slightly. _Ah, well, it can't be helped_. He called Wanda.

"Hello?"

"Hello, dear. How are you today?"

"I'm all right. I guess."

_Not a good day_, he deduced. He wasn't sure what his daughter needed, but his children often sounded down when he spoke to them. _Yet I keep trying…_

_'I'm sorry. I wish you were happier. I wish there was something I could do or say that could help._' He wanted to say that, but he couldn't. Instead he tried:

"You don't sound all right."

"I'm fine! Was there something you wanted?"

"Yes, actually. I have some news to share with you. I'm thinking of marrying again."

He heard her gasp on the other end. "Not the snake!" she wailed.

"Snake? What snake?"

"The blue snake! You're not thinking of marrying her, after all this time? You can't! _Teega me bornie roosa_!" He knew what meant. _Over my dead body_.

"That's what you called Mystique? No, it's not her. We've broken up." He cast an eye over his incinerated bed.

"Hvala Bogu." she said, in the Old Tongue. _Thank God. _"But who?"

"This must be kept absolutely quiet, and I mean that, because of a lawsuit she's putting together. Do you understand?"

"Yes! Fine, I won't talk about her to anyone but Pietro. Who?"

"Her name is Grace Engstrom, and she's a knitwear designer."

Silence for a long moment.

"She designs knitwear." Wanda stated flatly.

"Handknits, specifically. She's very talented."

"You're telling me that after nearly twenty years with the snake, you're thinking of marrying—_marrying_—a knitwear designer?"

"She _is_ a mutant." He told her.

"Tell me she's not twenty-three and empty-headed with a bosom like a pair of cannonballs." Wanda sounded despairing.

"She's not twenty-three, she's forty-seven. I'm not going to comment on her bosom, but it's certainly not like a pair of cannonballs. She's also intelligent."

"Then—wait! She's that woman who was all over TV yesterday. In Michigan."

"Yes, that's right."

"She's pregnant." Wanda told him.

"Yes, I know." _Here I go, enjoying myself again. This is remarkable. I don't remember the last time I had a conversation this long with either of my children. _

"But—but you didn't—you aren't—are you?" Her voice sank to a whisper.

"I don't see how that's relevant." Erik informed his daughter, nonchalantly. "I am thinking of marrying her. She is the sort of person with whom I can envision spending the rest of my life. Should anything else matter?" _I believe I mean that. I astonish even myself_.

"I don't believe it." Wanda said.

"I'm sorry that you don't, because it's true. I have more news."

"What else could there be, after that?"

"I mentioned the lawsuit, didn't I?" He explained what Grace hoped to achieve for mutantkind.

"I don't believe it!"

"Again, it's true. It's vital that her case succeed, because otherwise we face certain extinction. To that end, Charles Xavier and I have agreed to set aside our differences and work together to ensure it comes about. I'm moving into the school today, with all of my people, and Grace and I are going to try living together."

"You should have stopped when you told me about the lawsuit." she said, her voice suddenly icy. "Pietro, I don't know how you made your voice sound just like his, but it isn't funny."

"I am not your brother, I'm your father, Erik Magnus Lensherr, otherwise known as Magneto."

She said a short phrase he didn't understand, but it sounded rude. Extremely rude.

"You'll have to translate that if you expect me to respond properly," he told her, amiably.

_This is amazing. I'm having a real conversation with Wanda, one in which I'm not apologizing every third sentence, and she doesn't have on her polite façade. I'm enjoying this tremendously. How long has it been since I genuinely shocked anyone? Outraged, certainly, but not shocked. I didn't realize it would be such fun._

"You're really not Pietro."

"Correct."

"You really are him."

"Yes, I am, if by 'him', you mean your father, Erik Magnus Lensherr, etcetera. "

"And you truly are thinking of marrying this Grace Ingram."

"Grace Engstrom, not Ingram. You should look at her website. The blog and e-mail are off-line, due to the hate messages she's been receiving, but the rest of it is still functioning."

"Does she know that you're interested in her?"

"Of course she does. When I say living with her, I mean closet space, a bathroom, and a bed. Did you just whimper?"

"No!"

"Oh? That's what it sounded like. In any event, you ought to come by the school and meet her before the trial begins. I'd like her to have a chance to get to know you, and vice versa. Just give us a day or two to get settled in."

"Father, this is—This is wrong!"

"What's wrong? I can't answer that if you aren't more specific."

"I don't know!"

A sudden blur resolved itself into his son. Pietro stood before him, his sides heaving and his eyes wild.

"Well, your brother's here, so I'll say goodbye for now. If you work out what it is that's bothering you, why don't you call me back, and we'll talk about it? I would enjoy getting a call from you." he encouraged her. His children never called him; he was always the one to call them.

"I—all right. Goodbye, Father."

"Goodbye, Wanda."

He hung up and smiled at Pietro.


	29. Lost Girl

Grace gathered up the empty lemonade pitchers and headed for the stairwell. "Well, if you won't let me help out up here, I'll just have to find some other mischief to get into—in the kitchen, say."

"Bobby—watch it, the ladder's wobbling." Ororo said. "Truly, Grace, we're not trying to shut you out. It's just that in your condition…"

_I'm not that fragile_, Grace thought. _But there are more than enough hands to get everything done here. _"I know." she said.

"Careful on the steps, remember? I'm sorry we haven't changed that lightbulb yet. I can go do it now…." Scott offered. However, he was wielding a varnish brush, and not at a good place to run and change a bulb.

"Tell him not to worry, it can wait." advised the lion, from her pocket.

"It's all right. It can wait." Grace said, and used the handrail to guide herself down to the next floor.

_Since they're going to be working there for some time yet, I can best help out by starting dinner. Maybe my cooking skills have gotten rusty since I've been living alone, but surely there's something I can throw together without ruining it._ She made her way to the blue and copper school kitchen, and looked through the cupboards and the fridge.

_Canned tomatoes, canned beans, ground beef, and onions. Looks like it's going to be chili tonight. As long as it isn't burnt, it'll be edible, and the kids won't be too critical as long as there's plenty of it._ She found a notebook with dietary information on each resident of the school, noting who was vegetarian, who followed a kosher diet, who had food allergies and what they were, and so on. _If I do one huge pot of chili with meat, and a pot half that size without it, I'll have everybody covered. Plus a salad, to get some fresh vegetables, and maybe garlic bread. That'll be simple enough._

She reached into the refrigerator to see what salad vegetables were on hand, and the cow on the milk carton suggested, "Moo. You could make chocolate chip cookies." Being a cow, its voice was distinctly female.

She paused. "That's true--but since when do you just make suggestions for no reason? You're planning something else, I can tell. What is it?"

"Everybody loves chocolate chip cookies. Make a big batch."

"All right…" She took out butter for the cookies, set it on the counter to warm and soften, and went hunting for the chocolate chips. _Good. They have the recipe printed on the label. I can't mess them up._

She started in on the chili, chopping up onions and garlic until her eyes were streaming and she had to open all the windows and the back door to clear out the fumes.

Something dark flitted across the courtyard—a shadow of a bird, perhaps. She paid it no mind, but went back to work.

In one pot she fried some of the onions alone, while she browned the ground meat together with the rest of the tear-manufacturing vegetable in another, larger pot. When they were cooked enough, she went to get the huge food-service sized cans of tomatoes and beans—only to pause, puzzled, because the can opener, which she had put beside them, was missing.

"The speeding girl has them. She's playing a trick on you." said a fish potholder.

"Callisto?" Grace was actually asking the potholder, but the girl herself answered.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

"The can opener, please."

"It's right there." She pointed. The mutant girl had a tattoo on her cheek, a large and elaborate symbol Grace half-recognized. _How bizarre._

"Yes, because you put it back just now. It was facing the other way before."

"It was not! I don't make those kinds of mistakes."

Grace pointed her forefinger at her like a zap gun, and said, "Gotcha!"

The girl grimaced, and shot her the finger before she blurred out again. _She must get that from Mystique._ She saw the blur that was Callisto flash by in the courtyard, and stop. The girl was watching her.

_I'm not going to let her bother me, _Grace resolved, feeling slightly uneasy. She turned back to her dinner preparations. Soon two pots of savory chili were simmering away. _It'll take a while for them to be really ready to eat. Time for the cookies._

She put the softened butter in the mixer, added the brown and white sugars, and turned it on. The vanilla went in next, and then she went in the fridge for a carton of eggs.

The chicken on the carton clucked, and said, "Ask her to help you with the cookies."

"No. My name is not Wendy, so since when did it become my job to mother all of these Lost Boys and Lost Girls?"

"Buck-buck-b'gawk!" The chicken laid an egg. "Don't you want to know who you're fighting for?"

The egg shivered and broke open, releasing a baby chick. It cheeped, "And why?"

"Isn't it enough that I'm doing the fighting?"

Hen and chick shook their heads. "No."

"If I don't do this, are you going to start singing?"

"Yes."

"All right." She turned to the open door. "Callisto, would you like to help me with the cookies?"

Suddenly the girl was right in her face. "Go f--- yourself." As quickly as that, she was gone.

"That's fine with me," Grace snapped. "It wasn't my idea to be nice to you anyway. I only asked because I was told to."

The girl reappeared, "Did Magneto tell you he'd turn you over to the humans for a test subject if you didn't make nice?"

"No. It was the chicken on the egg carton that made me do it."

"What?" The girl was at her elbow, staring at the carton. "Bull. It's just an egg carton!"

"I know that. The voices make me think I see things move and talk. They don't really move—at least I don't think they do."

"You have voices in your head?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"And you do what they tell you to do?"

"They wore me out that way."

"What kinds of stuff do they tell you you have to do?"

"Nothing as exciting as burning down buildings or killing people. They tell me I have to get all the mutants in the world, or at least in America, to unite so they can work together to get the Registration Act repealed. And they're forcing me to befriend disgusting hostile people who wipe their noses on their sleeves and cuss me out."

"They're making me become a better person and I must say I'm starting to resent it." She addressed the chicken directly with the last phrase.

"Who are they?"

"No idea. They won't say. There are lots of theories going around, but no proof."

The girl looked at Grace in an assessing way. "I was really disappointed when I found out Magneto had dumped Mystique because of you. I didn't like that he wanted to be with somebody more normal, but I've changed my mind."

"Why?"

"You're not more normal."

"Gee, thanks. So are you going to help me with these f---ing cookies, or what?"

Callisto looked at Grace again, judging her. "I guess. Where's the flour?"

"I don't know. Try the cupboards over there."

While the girl measured flour into a cup, Grace cracked eggs into the mixer, letting the beaters whip them into the butter, becoming light and fluffy. _All right; she's helping. I wonder what her story is?_

As if in response—which it might very well have been—the chicken explained. "Her powers emerged when she was fourteen. Up until then, she was the apple of her parents' eye—an honor student, a star athlete, and a volunteer in the community.

"They kicked her out when they learned she was a mutant. A week later, she sold her virginity to a drunk in the backseat of a car for fifty dollars, just so she could eat. He never realized it. She's tried to commit suicide twice. That's why she wears those gauntlets from wrist to elbow—to cover the scars."

_God!_ A pain like a knife wound went straight to Grace's heart. _Are all their stories going to be so awful? Why does it have to be so horrible for them? What am I supposed to do about it? What am I supposed to do?_

"Right now, make chocolate chip cookies." The chicken told her.

_Make chocolate chip cookies. All right. That I can do._ She smiled at the young woman, although tears were burning her eyes again--and not because of the onions. "Thanks for helping. This is going to be a huge batch."


	30. Shocking the Children: Pietro

Looking at Pietro was like looking at a younger version of himself these days—except that the boy had inherited his mother's ears and chin. At that moment he looked puzzled.

"Pietro, this is a pleasant surprise! When you hung up so abruptly, I thought it meant you weren't speaking to me again."

Pietro wasn't looking at him, but past him. "What happened to your bed?"

"Mystique didn't take the news of our break-up well, I'm afraid."

"Then you aren't thinking of marrying her?"

"No."

"Then who?"

Erik explained, leaving out Grace's pregnancy for the time being.

"A knitwear designer? Not an assassin, or a geneticist, but a knitter?"

"As I said. Why? Do you have some sort of anti-sweater bias?"

"No, of course not. But—this doesn't make sense! Why her? Why this one?"

_I'm not about to tell him my interest in her is only partially for herself and partially for the potential 'Maeve' gene complex. That would be showing my hand too soon, and he would sneer, saying he should have known. I need a truth which isn't the entire truth._

"I like her laugh. She has a marvelous laugh. The best word I can think of to describe it is…'wacky'. In a good way, of course."

Pietro stared at him. "What. The hell. Has happened. To you?" he asked, spacing out his words deliberately and carefully.

Erik's phone rang. "I don't know what you mean—one moment." He answered it.

Wanda said, "When you said she was forty-seven, I wasn't expecting someone who looked like Rene Russo. I thought she would look more…middle-aged."

"Hello, Wanda! Rene Russo? I would have said Patricia Neal, but perhaps it's a generational difference. And she is middle-aged, therefore she looks middle-aged. She simply stretches the definition. I take it you are looking at her web-site."

"Who's Patricia Neal?"

"She was in The Day The Earth Stood Still and Hud. Have you worked out what is wrong?"

"Umm—not yet. May I speak to Pietro? Please." she added.

"Certainly." He took off the headset and handed it to his son. "Wanda would like to speak to you."

"Wanda?" Pietro asked, as he slipped it on. "No, I don't know what she looks like…He says he likes her laugh. Yes, I know…It can't be a mid-life crisis. For one thing, he's too old, and for another, since when does _he_ have a life?"

"I have a life." Erik stated with dignity. "You simply haven't had any interest in it."

"You do not have a life," retorted his son. "You have a Cause. A life has people who are important to you. A Cause has ideals that are important to you."

"Can one not have both?"

"'One' might. You can't…She's what? Father, you didn't—did you get her pregnant?"

"I don't think we have the kind of relationship where I would feel comfortable sharing something so personal with you." He put a stack of shirts in his trunk, and pulled some more steel from the other cabinets to enlarge it.

Pietro's face darkened with anger. "If you're going to be like that—"

"I'm quoting your own words back to you. That was what you said to me when I asked about your estrangement from Crystal. Could you please decide whether you wish to talk to me or to Wanda? This manner of conversing is rather awkward."

"I'll call you back, Wanda. Father, I—why are you packing?"

"Didn't your sister tell you? Grace is going to sue her health care provider for outing her as a mutant and the government for enacting laws which resulted in losses, pain and suffering because she is a mutant. Given enough help, she has an excellent chance of winning, getting the Registration Act repealed and anti-discrimination laws passed instead. To that end, I and all my followers are moving camp to Xavier's for the duration."

"Who are you, and what have you done with the real Magneto?" He wasn't joking.

"I _am_ the real Magneto. Grace is a visionary of sorts, and quite a powerful one. If we mutants don't stop fighting amongst ourselves and work together, the camps will return. We have until the first week of April to achieve our goal. I assure you nothing else—not my slightest opinion—has changed."

"And you believe in her visions?"

"So would you, if you had witnessed what I have. You're more than welcome to come along and meet her."

"I don't know…Father, I—we—think you're making a terrible mistake."

"Why does it matter to you? I would have thought you would be pleased, if not for my sake, then for your own."

"Why?"

"Because if this works out, she will legally be my next of kin, and you will therefore be relieved of the responsibility of figuring out what to do with me when I become truly decrepit and start to dribble."

Pietro spluttered for a moment. "How can you talk like that?"

"I find it helps to keep one's sense of humor."

"Father—she's too young for you. I'm afraid she's going to make an awful fool of you."

"You mean that she will be unfaithful to me—just as Mystique was?"

"No. Not like Mystique. What you had going with her didn't mean any more to you than—than washing your hands. But now you're talking about how you like her laugh, and spending the rest of your life with her. This Ms. Engstrom means something to you. We just don't want to see your heart get broken."

Erik closed the lid of his trunk and sealed it. "I have two things to say in reply to that. First, you don't know her." _I myself am only just learning, but I like what I'm discovering._

"Second, your concern for my heart is most touching, considering that for years you have acted as if I had no heart to break." The angry, passionate words spilled out from somewhere deep within him, long repressed and now inexorable.

"Every time one of you hung up in the middle of my calls, every time you responded to my questions about what was going on in your lives with short, cold, polite answers, every time you rejected my offer to meet somewhere, just to go for a simple cup of coffee—my heart broke a little." The final words came thick and slow from a throat which was threatening to close with unshed tears.

_Finally I say what I have wanted to say for years, but been afraid to voice._

"Hey. Everybody's ready downstairs." Pyro stood in the doorway.

The moment was broken. "Pietro, this is Pyro, my right-hand man around here." Pyro brightened a little at that praise. "Pyro, this is my son Pietro. Pietro, if you wish to continue this conversation now, it will have to be in transit. You may come or not, as you please."

Pietro looked as though he was torn. "I'll—come along."

* * *

A/N: A blanket thank you to all my reviewers. I can't always reply as I would like to and as you deserve. 

Also, a question. Grace has her hair dyed red by professionals. Since she won't be able to go back to her regular salon, should she find another near Xavier's, or should she get a product to remove all the artificial color, and go with what's underneath, which is mostly silvery-grey?


	31. Shocking the Children: Grace has a Turn

Hank's nose twitched. "Do you smell what I smell?"

"I'm afraid my nose isn't as sensitive as yours," replied Charles Xavier. "What do you smell?"

"Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies." The Beast pushed back his chair and stood. "Forgive me, Professor, but the lure of a batch of Toll House cookies is irresistible."

"I wonder who is doing the baking," said the professor, "for as far as I know, everyone but Logan is helping with Ms. Engstrom's attic."

"Care to accompany me?" McCoy invited.

"I'm no more immune to a cookie than the next man," demurred Xavier, and they went down the hall toward the mansion's kitchen.

The smell of chocolate chip cookies soon became detectable to the professor's nose, and another scent blended with it—something tomato-y and rich.

Grace Engstrom's voice floated through the closed door down the hall toward them. "No, and I can prove it, too. I have a book from that exhibition on Chanel the Metropolitan Museum of Art did last year—or was it the year before? Lagerfeld just didn't get it. That's the difference between fashion design and clothing design. Fashion is something for runways and magazines.

"Clothing is what people actually wear to keep from being naked and cold or sunburnt. That isn't to say it can't be fashionable as well, but the philosophy is different. You're better than talented, Callie. You're skilled, which only comes from actual practice and work. Don't waste it on _fashion_." She said it as if it were a dirty word.

_Who is Callie?_ Xavier wondered as Hank opened the door.

'Callie' turned out to be Callisto, the sullen, angry girl Erik had brought with him and apparently left behind. She was quite different now, sitting up straight on a kitchen stool, her expression open, and her eyes bright. Ms. Engstrom was examining the seams of a leather and rubber jacket from the inside out, critically but approvingly.

The moment the girl saw them, the sullen face slammed back over the lively one like the portcullis of a castle. "Hello," the knitwear designer waved a sleeve at them in greeting, "Would you gentlemen care for a cookie? Your students and staff seem to think I'm made of spun glass, so I decided to get my revenge by getting a start on dinner."

"Thank you, yes." Hank said, eagerly, peering at the racks of cookies cooling on the countertop.

"And Callisto has been helping?" asked the Professor.

"I don't know if you could call it _helping_," said Erik's inamorata. "She's been a complete bitch the whole time, and it was her idea to not only make cornbread but to put cheddar cheese and green chilies in the batter, so if it isn't fit to eat, don't blame me." She winked at them.

The girl made a face and stuck her tongue out at Ms Engstrom, who mock-snarled back. "Garlic bread and chili just don't go together." The girl complained. "Everybody knows that."

"Yeah, well, I can make garlic bread without a mix or a recipe."

"The cornbread was a mix!"

"Yes, but you started getting creative with it!" It was quite clear the two had been having a good time.

"Gwud cwkwys," said Hank through a mouthful, spraying crumbs as he spoke. He swallowed and repeated, more clearly, "Good cookies, Ms. Engstrom, Callisto. Thanks."

"I think your boyfriend's back," grumbled Logan, who sidled in the backdoor. Xavier noticed that he surreptitiously snuck two cookies. _A very shrewd idea of Ms. Engstrom's, making cookies._

"Boyfriend?" Ms. Engstrom raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem to fit, exactly, but thank you." The sound of the Brotherhood's craft could be heard by those without Logan's hyper-sensitive ears.

_I wonder if I misread what is going on between them, yesterday. For all that it seemed to me that they barely knew one another then, they don't act like near strangers. They act…married. Still honeymooning, but married._

The glow coming off the two of them that morning had been unmistakable, which was not to say they had been mauling one another. They had been acting like adults—no inappropriate touching, no giggling, nothing which would embarrass or offend. They were too mature for that. Erik had touched her arm to guide her and when they parted, she had kissed him on the cheek—no one could have been more discreet. They were simply…together.

_I wonder if it will last._

Now Grace Engstrom was moving about the kitchen casually but alertly, checking on the cornbread in the oven and directing Callisto to stir the chili, putting cookies on plates—yet it was clear all of that was mere busy work. She was waiting for a tall, silver haired man to walk in the door, and when he did, she lit up as though she had swallowed a lighted candle.

So did Erik.

Pietro, his son, who followed closely on his father's heels, did not.

* * *

The dynamics on the flight back to Xavier's had been interesting, to say the least. Pietro kept shooting him funny looks, as if his father were about to sprout another head or begin speaking only in haiku, while Pyro, who was no fool, was going out of his way to demonstrate that he was intelligent, loyal, and respectful—in short, that he would make a better son than Pietro. He wasn't even sulking about having to return to Xavier's, which was a minor miracle.

Now, as they followed the voices to the kitchen, he was helpfully pointing out, with all the assurance of a old pro, where the various features of the mansion were—the girls' dormitory wing, the boys', the dining hall, and so on, to the rest of the Brotherhood.

_Pyro wishes he were my son._ Erik was genuinely touched. _I must find some way of showing my appreciation—some additional responsibility perhaps, something which shows the trust I have in him? It will mean even more if I do so when Pietro isn't around—to show I'm not simply scoring off against him by favoring Pyro._

In the meantime, he asked, "How's your novel coming along, Pyro? Heard back from any agents lately?" Pyro had a distinct talent for gothic fiction, and was trying to launch his first novel, a romance with a werewolf secret agent as the hero, and a heroine in a coma who was haunting the hero psychically. Erik had read it, and was surprised at how literate it was. He also believed it had little chance of being published, as the leads were mutants, even if it was never specifically stated. Mutants were the kiss of death in publishing.

The young man grinned. "I got a request for a full manuscript this morning! Sent it right off by e-mail attachment."

"That's wonderful. I wish you the best." They had reached the kitchen, and he could hear Grace's voice. "Thanks, Cally. If you'll take one plate, I'll take the other, and we'll go up then, and see how far they've gotten."

"Hello, my dear." He stepped inside the kitchen door, and smiled at her. "Back again the same day, as predicted."

She had a smudge of flour on her cheek, and her dimples were in full view and she was lovely, heartbreakingly lovely. "Hello yourself. They have an exaggerated idea of how delicate my condition is, so I've been working down here."

"And used your time productively, I can smell." He took out his handkerchief, and stepping closer to her, wiped the flour from her face. "Hello, Charles, Henry, Logan—Callisto. Pyro and Toad you already know, of course. These young people are Quill and Arclight. The young man standing directly behind me, however, is here for a different reason. Grace, my son Pietro Maximoff—the Maximoffs were his and his sister's foster parents.

"If he's unforgivably offensive to you, don't take it personally. He's like that with everyone—even his sister, at times, but especially with me and people connected to me. It comes of speaking before he thinks about what's coming out of his mouth." _Apparently whatever devilry seized my tongue earlier hasn't departed yet. _

"I wasn't going to say anything offensive!" Pietro glared at him.

"No? That's good. Uncharacteristic, but good. Charles, why are your eyebrows trying to climb your forehead?" _He looks quite astonished._

"No reason." Xavier said, startled.

"Thank you for the warning." Grace said to him, and winked at him, then turned to his son. "I'm glad to meet everyone. Hello, Pietro. I'm glad you came along, I was hoping I would get to meet you soon."

"Ms. Engstrom. I don't know what impression my father has been giving you about me, but I hope you won't take it to heart." Pietro spoke very carefully. _Very good. Very good indeed. He's going to do his best to prove me wrong about him._

"He hasn't told me enough about you for me to form any impression of you yet. Callisto and I were just about to go up and see what they've done to my attic—want to come along?" Her glance included both him and his son.

"By all means." Erik replied.

"Help yourselves to the cookies," she said, and the four of them left the kitchen.

"Ms. Engstrom—I have to say that my sister and I were quite surprised to hear that our father was thinking of marrying again—."

Grace half-turned while walking, so she could look at the two of them. "I'm somewhat surprised to hear it myself, as this is the first time the word 'marriage' has entered the equation. I was just getting used to the idea of living together." Her voice had a definite edge to it.

_Damnation_. "I said 'thinking' of marrying again. _Actually_ marrying again is entirely a different matter. That would be contingent upon whether this works out, and on whether you agree."

"Well, I'm delighted to hear that," she retorted. "I think you'd have some trouble managing it if I didn't. Pietro, you sound dubious about the idea. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I—that is, my sister and I—were wondering why you were with him to begin with. I hope I'm not being offensive," Pietro added, hastily, as they entered the elevator.

"Not unforgivably so." She hit his son with a smile like a cut from a razor. "I'll be equally frank with you. Partly it's for reasons you really don't want to know, because you'd be embarrassed and revolted to hear me talk like that about your father…"

Callisto snorted.

"…and I have to admit the voices in my head are telling me to stay with him despite my misgivings. I'm not kidding about that, either."

"Voices in your head?" he asked, sounding uncertain.

"Uh-huh. He didn't explain about my little friends, did he?" Upon Pietro's head-shake, she went on. "I have a menagerie that give me messages about what I ought to do. They want to prevent mutantkind from being exterminated, and they're telling me how to accomplish that. For some reason, that involves…being involved with your father. If that confuses you, you're not alone. It confuses me, and everyone else."

"I'm not confused," Erik defended himself.

"I'm concerned." Pietro said, sounding worried. "I thought—Father, didn't you say she was a visionary?"

"I said a visionary of sorts. I never entered into the nature of her visions. She's not imagining things, and she's perfectly sane. Charles Xavier will vouch for that."

They exited the elevator on the floor just below the attics. Callisto was following the entire conversation with great interest.

"Okay…." Pietro said. "But there is the question of the age difference between you—and the baby. While I don't mean to imply anything, I know you're a handknitter, and that you can't be very well-off, and while—."

She stopped dead in her tracks and gave him a piercing look. "And you were doing so well and tactfully, too!" she said, amusedly. "You have the wrong impression—about the knitting, among other things. The age difference I can do nothing about, and the baby is none of your business unless I decide to pin it on you. I'm not telling anyone who the father is—no-one at all. Not even your father.

"The implication that I'm a gold-digger _does_ offend me. I don't eke out a living doing mall craft fairs. I bought a house on the proceeds of my work. I've written four books, and the most expensive single commission I've ever done was a hand-crocheted wedding gown in kid mohair and silk for Vera Wang, for which I received twelve thousand dollars. It appeared in Modern Bride magazine two years ago. Anthropologie buys my designs and has them mass-produced for their catalog and their chain of stores. I made almost three hundred thousand last year after taxes.

"However, to put your mind at ease, I'll do this for you. I give you my solemn word that I will not marry your father until you and your sister come to me and ask me to be his wife." She gave Pietro that razor-cut smile again. "Until then—we'll just shack up."


	32. The Attic

Grace could tell she had scored a good one by the expressions of the faces of both father and son. Pietro's jaw had dropped, and he looked just plain dumbfounded. Erik was torn between annoyance and amusement.

Fortunately, the amusement won. He chuckled, while Pietro asked "What?" in a disbelieving voice. "I thought people who were older cared more about things like that."

"Older? I'm forty-seven, which makes me twelve years older than you are. We're the same generation."

Erik said, appreciatively, "At least she is older than you are. I disagree with your assessment that she's too young for me, by the way. Seventeen would be horrifying, twenty-seven outrageous, thirty-seven embarrassing, but forty-seven is within the boundaries of what is reasonable. Not that I care about that sort of thing, but you seem to. By the way, has it escaped your notice that she is, in fact, five years older than Mystique?"

"I'm impressed." Grace looked at him with new eyes. "You left a younger woman for an older one. That has to mean something. Five years isn't much older, but still…"

"My head is starting to hurt." Pietro complained, "Can somebody give me some real answers?"

"Try asking some real questions first. This is the door to the stairs. Watch yourselves—the light bulb needs replacing." _Poor boy. Clearly he isn't as intelligent as Erik._

"Careful!" Ororo called down to them. "There are some bags of trash on the stairs and brooms in the stairwell!"

"Thank you!" The four of them picked their way up carefully. _I should move those brooms, at least, before someone gets hurt._

"Uh-uh. Leave them where they are." said the lion.

"What are you up to now?" she whispered to it.

"Did you say something?" Erik called from further down the stairs.

"Just responding to the peanut gallery." She reached the top, shoving the brooms back and out of the way.

The junk-crammed space was now open and obstruction-free. Air and light circulated freely, and the dozen or so people up there looked sweaty, dirty, and happy.

"Well—what do you think?" Jean swept her arm to take in the whole attic.

"It looks great!" The walls were freshly repainted in a warm creamy white, and the formerly dust-veiled windows sparkled with transparent cleanliness. She stepped out of the stairwell into the attic.

"I'm really impressed. Thank you all so much," she said, turning around. "This may not be the size of a house, but it comes close. You could fit three of my first apartment in here, and still have room for more. Well, I haven't been wasting my time while you have been working—Callie?" The girl stepped forward with her plate, and together they whisked off the napkins covering the cookies.

"Hey!" The students rushed them in their mad dash for the cookies. "There's more down in the kitchen where these came from, but save some room for dinner, because there are two pots of chili and a lot of cornbread waiting for you."

"Careful on the stairs!" Jean called, as they rushed toward the promise of more cookies. "You took care of dinner? You didn't have to do that. Thanks."

"You might want to wait to thank me until after you've tried it." Grace warned her. "I used to cook every day, but when you live alone, it's too much trouble."

"However it turned out, it can't be worse than some of the dishes that have come out of that kitchen. We have a rotating schedule for kitchen duties. We better get down there to make sure we get some cookies ourselves—I mean, to make sure the kids don't ruin their appetites." Scott Summers coughed.

"See—he may seem stiff, but he's a sleeper." Jean followed her boyfriend down the stairs.

"Oh—could you take the cornbread out, if it looks done?" Grace called after her.

"Sure!"

That left Grace alone with her lover, his son, and Callisto. Their footsteps echoed around the bare rooms.

"This is a nice-sized space," commented Erik. "It will seem smaller with furniture, but all the same, it would seem to be sufficient."

"I've lived worse places." Callisto said, walking to the far end of the attic. "Look, you even have a balcony. See?"

Erik made a motion, and the French doors opened by themselves. "Given my powers, this amounts to a private entrance. Yes, it's very nice."

"Bigger than my apartment in the city." Pietro admitted.

"It's going to be hard to baby-proof." Grace said, looking around. "Once he can crawl, he'll be able to get places I can't follow. All these corners!"

"With luck," Erik walked over to her and slid an arm around her waist. "by that time, we will be able to live anywhere we choose." She closed her eyes and swayed against him. _I am utterly shameless, I know it._

"Feh!" Pietro made a sound of disgust. "This is just sickening. At your ages! I can't hang around here and watch this any more!" He turned and ran for the stairs, blurring out just as Callisto did.

"Careful!" It was too late. The brooms tripped him up, and with a lot of cursing and thumping, Pietro Maximoff fell down the stairs, at superhuman speed.

* * *

"Ow! Ow ow ow!" Pietro complained. He was in the infirmary, and Ororo, Grace, Callisto, Erik and Scott were watching the doctor work on him.

"Just be grateful it's only sprained," Jean scolded him as she wrapped his ankle with an elastic bandage. "I'm going to strap a boot-shaped brace on you, and you're to wear it day and night for the next week, sleeping and waking. No running. You can swim all you like, though. And—if you hadn't already guessed—you're not going anywhere for four days at the very least. Now—here's some codeine pills."

Pietro took them with a swallow of water. "Why on earth did someone leave brooms on the stairs? The unlit stairs?"

"Excuse me? Did we not say 'Be careful on the stairs?'" Ororo asked. "You knew they were there. You went past them on the way up."

"Are you saying this is my own fault?" he glared at her.

"If the shoe fits…" his father said.

"Right now, the shoe won't fit." Jean picked up the piece of footgear in question. "and it won't for a week or more. Lie back, Pietro. That codeine is going to hit you hard and fast."

"He's gonna go bugnuts." predicted Callisto. "I do when I can't move. You know, he bounced at least twice on the way down. I heard it. And felt it. He's lucky to be alive."

_Luck, good or bad, had nothing to do with it,_ Grace thought. "I just need a second to freshen up." she said, weakly.

The moment she was alone, she pulled the lion out of her pocket and hissed at it. "You wanted him to fall down the stairs! You made me tell them not to put a new light bulb in, and you told me not to move those brooms. Is this it? Is this where you start revealing your true colors? Are you really evil after all? He could have been killed! Why did you do it?"

The lion shook his head at her. "Mend what is broken."

"He didn't break anything. It was only a sprain."

"It's not his ankle that needs mending."

"Well then, what do you mean?"

It refused to say another word.


	33. What Rogue Remembered

Wanda called during dinner, and she was nearly hysterical. "Excuse me a moment," Erik said to the other diners at the head table when he saw who the call was from, and stepped over to the sideboard.

"He's hurt. I know it, I felt it. What happened to him? What happened to my brother?"

"Wanda, calm down. Your brother is fine. He sprained his ankle, that's all." He made his voice as soothing as he could.

"Sprained his ankle? He never sprains his ankle." She denied the very idea.

"This time, he did. He started running without paying attention to his surroundings, and he took a fall down the stairs."

"Then why can't I feel him now?"

"Dr. Grey gave him codeine pills for the pain. He's asleep."

"Dr. Grey—Then you're at Xavier's? Both of you?"

"Yes. You caught me in the middle of dinner."

"What time is it—? I can still get a train to Salem Center. I'm coming to see him."

"Tonight?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Very well. Call if you need someone to pick you up at the station, and I'll see you later."

"I will. Goodbye, Father."

_Two calls in one day, when she's never called before. It's all because she's upset, but still, that's more communication than she otherwise volunteers in a year._

He folded the phone into his pocket and resumed his seat. "That was my daughter. She's planning to take a train up here tonight."

Down at one of the student tables, that remark set off a conversation.

"Who knew Magneto had kids?" Kitty asked.

"Ah did." Rogue said, quietly.

"Oh, that's right! You would." Jubilee chimed in. "Because of how when he gave you his powers, he gave you some of his memories, too. So—what do you know about them?"

"Ah know he didn't raise them, and he hasn't got what you'd call a good relationship with them now. Their names are Wanda and Pietro, and they're twins."

"So who was their mom?" Jubilee asked.

"Ah don't know a whole lot about her. He doesn't like to think too much about her cause he hurts real bad when he does. Her name was Magda, and she was human."

"Human? Wouldn't that be like that senator, what was his name---Thurmond, who was this big racist, but it turned out he had a child with a black woman?" Kitty frowned.

"He didn't know he was a mutant then. He didn't even know there were such things as mutants." Rogue replied.

"Weren't his powers a clue?" scoffed Jubilee.

"He didn't come into his powers reliably until he was older." The strange girl called Callisto spoke up. "He told us about how he grew up in Auschwitz, and malnutrition retards the development of powers. He just knew metal things sometimes jumped around when he was upset."

"Oh." said Jubilee.

"That fits right in with something else Ah remember from his past." Rogue leaned forward, confidingly. "This one cuts right to the bone. Ordinarily Ah wouldn't feel right about telling something like this—."

"Then maybe you shouldn't" Callisto put in.

"—but it wasn't like he told me in confidence. He was trying to kill me. Ah didn't want to know all this about him. The twins weren't the only kids he and his wife had. They had a little girl before them. The first time his powers worked at full strength was the night she died."

"Did he kill her?" gasped Jubilee.

"No. He wouldn't do that. Not to his child." Callisto stated.

"Wouldn't he?" asked Rogue. "He was willing that Ah should die for what he believes in. Ah don't think there's anybody he wouldn't sacrifice for what he thinks is right—except himself. But you're right. He didn't kill his daughter. There was a fire…

"A lot of this is confused in mah head. This was back when there was a Soviet Union, and that was where they were living. He got in bad with this labor gang, and they were beating him up while the place they were living was burning down. His daughter was trapped, and he could hear her calling him, and then screaming. See, his wife had left her there when she went out grocery shopping, so she was safe.

"That was when he snapped, when his little girl was burning to death. His powers—well, you know what they're like. He just lashed out at everybody around—killed a lot of people. He didn't mean to, he didn't have control over them."

Intent as Rogue was on the story that she was telling—and as intent as her audience was—they didn't realize the room had fallen silent, and she was clearly audible to everyone present. Nor did she realize Magneto was gripping the edge of the head table in both hands…

"There he was, with their daughter dead there in front of him, bodies all around, and his wife just freaked out—."

The spoon in her hand suddenly tied itself into a knot. She jumped, and turned as a scraping sound came from the head table. Magneto had stood, pushing back his chair, which toppled backward and crashed on the floor.

His face had gone grey, and Rogue had never seen him look angrier—or scarier—than at that moment. Deliberately and carefully, he picked up his chair and replaced it at the table. Then he turned and walked out of the dining room without saying a word or looking at her.

"Rogue." Professor Xavier said into the silence. "Come here, please."

All around her, people scrambled to fill the quiet with conversation, any conversation, while she got up and walked the short distance to the head table. It seemed like five miles.

Everyone at the head table looked at her with reproachful eyes, except for Ms. Engstrom, who had gone white under her tan. She was folding her napkin and putting it beside her plate.

"I am very disappointed in you." Professor Xavier said. "You may go back to your seat, Marie."

Somehow having the Professor say that was worse than if he'd hauled off and given her a fat lip with the back of his hand. "Professor—Ah—Ah—."

"I am not the person you should say that to." He didn't soften his look. "I don't recommend that you follow him now, however."

The walk back to her table was just as long. Behind her, Grace Engstrom murmured something, and left the room.

* * *

Erik was in his room, in the dark, staring out the window. She hesitated a moment, wondering whether she should knock first, but she decided their relationship didn't require such formality. 

She had to touch his shoulder before he turned his head and said, "Did your voices tell you to come after me?"

"No. They didn't have to."

He reached out and drew her in, crushing her against him. She was half-expecting the embrace to turn into love-making, a rough grasping for comfort which men—and sometimes women, too—sought from a partner, but it did not.

"I would have told you." he said into her hair. "I wanted to tell you, later, when you knew me better, when we knew each other better, but in my own time. That wretched girl…"

"I think we're learning about each other at an accelerated rate. We're going through years together in a matter of days. Let's lie down."

"I—." he began.

"I'm not going to rape you—or expect you to rape me." she interrupted. "My feet are sore from all the standing and walking in the kitchen, that's all."

They moved to the bed, and lay on it fully clothed, on top of the covers, and she wrapped her arms around him. The tension in his shoulders was palpable under her fingers—he was almost trembling with it.

"She was terrified." Erik said, after a long silence. "Terrified of me. She looked at me like a—a thing, not her husband. I didn't hurt her, I wouldn't have hurt her. Never."

Grace could think of nothing to say in reply, so in silence she kissed his brow, his eyelids, his ear. After another silence, he said. "I will never hurt you. I swear it. No matter what. Only—only, whatever may happen, don't just disappear, without a word. Get angry at me—shout, yell all you like, throw things—but don't vanish forever."

"I won't."

She held him like that until his weight started to put her arm to sleep; then they shifted positions. "I feel very bad about Pietro." she told him.

"That's sweet of you…" he said, half-asleep. "Wasn't your fault."

"My voices set him up."

"…What?"

"They wanted him to fall down the stairs, so the lion told me not to have Scott replace the bulb right away, and then he told me not to move the brooms."

"Why would they do that?"

"I think they wanted him to have to stay here so the two of you can patch up your relationship. If you could manage that without me, I'd be so grateful, because I feel kind of swamped as it is."

She could feel the ripple of laughter. "I'll see what I can do…"

They drifted off to sleep as they were, only to be woken by a loud knock on the door, and a woman calling, "Father? Are you there?"

"Wanda?" Erik asked, muzzily.


	34. Send Them Home

"Ow!" "Ouch!" Their waking was so abrupt that they managed to knock their heads together when they sat up.

"Bogu moy! She's in there with you? It isn't even eight o'clock yet. Please tell me you're not both naked!"

"We're fully clothed, Wanda." _Why is there such a general outrage at the notion that I have a sex life?_

Beside him, Grace began to laugh. "This takes me back thirty years. My boyfriend's mother said almost the exact same thing to us once."

"Some things never change." he agreed, going to the door and opening it.

His daughter stood there, her blue eyes snapping and her nostrils flaring, clearly about to boil over.

"Exactly like Colin's mother." Grace chortled. She was hunting for one of her shoes. "'We weren't doing anything, Mrs. Rutherford, I swear! _Please _don't call my parents.'"

"Hello, Wanda. Have you seen your brother yet?"

"No. I thought that since he was unconscious, I would find you first." She said it as if she should have known that was a mistake.

"Then we'll go see him now. First, however, Grace, this is my daughter Wanda. Wanda, this is Ms. Engstrom. You don't have to be rude to her; your brother took care of that. He was more than rude enough for two people."

"He didn't actually call me a gold-digger and a skanky ho, but he came close." Grace had found her shoe and joined him at the door. "The implication was clear."

"Oh." Wanda visibly and resourcefully reined in her anger. "I'm sorry if he offended you, Ms. Engstrom. You see, we never knew our birth mother, and the only other woman we knew our father was involved with was…I'm afraid we were expecting the worst."

"I'm not sure what I expected when Erik said he wanted to tell his children about me, but it wasn't this." Grace said ruefully. "I think I'll leave you two to visit the injured, and go see if I can find something to fill in what dinner didn't quite cover. I'll see you later."

Erik waited until she had disappeared around the corner before he turned to his daughter.

"That was well said," he congratulated Wanda. "You almost succeeded in concealing the prejudice you formed against her before you even met her."

"Why are you talking this way? You're being—flippant."

"Flippant? I am not being flippant. Believe it or not, I'm teetering on the verge of elation."

"Because you're in love?" Wanda looked incredulous.

"Because today I talked to both my children, and they answered me honestly. We had more genuine communication today than in the past five or ten years combined. My daughter called me—twice! And my son came out of his way to see me. I was beginning to despair that all my efforts to create and maintain a relationship with you were in vain. Now I know that you do care. Granted, your concern exhibits itself in the form of disapproval, but disapproval is worlds better than indifference. I have hopes that this will evolve into a closer relationship than we have ever had before."

"You're still being flippant."

"Take it in whatever sense you will. The fact remains that I am happy with these developments. Now shall we go see your brother?"

* * *

Grace wasn't especially hungry, but she didn't want to intrude on Erik's conversation with his daughter. "So," she said to her lion as she walked through the darkened corridors, heading for her attic, to see what it looked like at night, "since you seem to know everything, can you give me the skinny on the first Mrs. Magneto?"

_--Wait a minute. Did I just say the 'first' Mrs. Magneto? As opposed to the 'late' Mrs. Magneto? Implying that she has a successor?_

_Am I already thinking of myself as Erik's wife?_

_I don't think I should be doing that…_

The lion interrupted her train of thought. "She was another survivor of the camp. She was having emotional problems he didn't know about. He was working twelve to fifteen hours a day, so he wasn't there to see what was wrong, and she didn't tell him."

"What kind of emotional problems?"

"Survivor's guilt. Stress. Difficulty coping with the responsibility of being a mother. Depression."

"Was she a danger to herself?" She pulled the lion out of her pocket as she ascended the stairs to her attic—the stairs were very well lit now that the new bulb had been installed.

"No. Not yet." the lion told her.

"Was she a danger to their daughter?"

"Not while they lived in the village, where everybody knew them. There was always a neighbor woman to help. When they moved to the city, that was when she became a danger."

"Was Magda abusing her little girl?" The attic was lit by single light bulbs which hung on wires from the ceiling—very plain, minimalistic.

"Not yet. She always stopped herself. People who are hurting create hurting families."

"That's true. Is that why she left their child alone while she went shopping for food?"

"Yes."

"Because she thought her child would be safer that way…How old was their daughter, anyway?"

"She was four."

"Everybody knows you don't leave a four-year-old alone!" _Unless you think she would be safer where she is, than she would be with you…_

Except that she wasn't. Not that time.

"So what happened to Magda?" Grace crossed to the window and looked out toward the shimmer of the lake. _If one child stressed her out to the point where she couldn't handle it, what would suddenly having infant twins do to her?_

"She waited until she was strong enough to walk, and then she went out into the winter night." The lion looked sad.

"She deliberately killed herself?"

"Yes. To keep them safe. She loved them."

"To keep them safe. From their father, who didn't even know they existed, or from their mother, who was tempted to hurt them?"

It said nothing.

"Hello?" She shook it. It was quiet.

The attic itself was quiet, which was good, since she would soon be living up there. No rustlings of mice, no creaking. Just the sound of the wind, not very loud, and the echoes of her own footsteps.

She spoke her thoughts aloud. "So Wanda and Pietro are hurting, which is why Pietro's marriage failed, and probably why Wanda married an android. After all, a husband who was a real person might be too dangerous and scary. It would be safer to marry someone artificial, who never got tired, or cranky, or sick, whose programming would keep him from ever…running off to Atlantic City with all their savings and a cocktail waitress named Raquel.

"Erik was hurt, and he's still hurting but at least he's functional. I'm the only one who isn't one of the walking wounded…My mother never beat me, my father never molested me, I had a happy childhood, and if my brothers did sing 'Amazing Grace' over and over again while Danny sat on me and farted, that's pretty much what you can expect from older brothers.

"I was never raped, only mugged once, and didn't get badly hurt, never used drugs or ran away or had to sell my body to eat. For forty-seven years, I had a normal life."

"You're about the only one here who did." said the lion. "By here, I mean all the mutants in the world."

"You—you mean that?"

"Yes. They're all hurting. They're all wounded. Mend what is broken."

"How am I supposed to do that? Am I supposed to mend them all? How many of them are there?"

"Relax. We don't expect you to do it all. We're not going to give you anything you can't handle."

"You're being awfully communicative and helpful tonight….Are you sure you're right in trusting me so much?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Send them home."

"Send them home. All right. Are you going to tell me what that means, or am I supposed to figure that out on my own?"

"Send them home."

"Nothing else?" She squinted at it.

"Go down two levels, and take a right at the first cross-corridor."

"When you get this specific, I get worried."


	35. Shocking the Children: Both at Once

As it so happened, Pietro was fully awake and eating chili when his father and sister came to check up on him, and soon the Lensherr family drama was in full swing once again.

Not that it had taken much of a break…

"Perhaps if you called me or came to see me before this, the news wouldn't have come as such a shock." Erik told his children cheerfully. _I did say 'perhaps', so technically I am not lying to them._ "I didn't think you had any interest in my day-to-day life, so I never mentioned her." _Leaving aside that I would never mention a one-night-stand to them…_

"She doesn't want to marry you anyway!" exploded Pietro. "She said so!"

"You're misinterpreting and misrepresenting what she_ did_ say. For your benefit, Wanda, once Pietro had been as insulting as he could be without using four-letter-words, Grace made him, and you, a solemn promise. She made it to me as well, come to think of it. She and I will only live together, forgoing actual marriage, until such time as the two of you go to her and ask her to be my wife."

"What?" Wanda exclaimed. "That's supposed to be better somehow?"

"In some ways it is better. It would mean that she is with me, and stays with me, not out of any legal, religious, or social tie, but simply because she wants to be with me." Erik folded his arms, crossed his ankles and leaned against the infirmary wall. _I missed my cue on relating to Pietro and Wanda long ago_. _Contrition got me nowhere. Outraging them gets much better results, and it's so much more enjoyable_.

"But the only reason she's with you is because the 'voices in her head' are telling her to. Did either of them tell you about her 'voices'?" Pietro asked his sister.

"Yes, he did, on the way here. I think you're wrong to sneer at that, by the way. We met more than one seer among the Rom when Mama and Papa Maximoff were alive, remember?" Wanda looked at her brother.

"Yes, and at least half of them were frauds." Pietro, like his father, folded his arms, but he lacked his father's inherent dignity, and merely looked mulish rather than urbane. Being confined to bed did not help.

"But some of them weren't. I never heard of one who got so many messages so clearly and so regularly, but then they weren't mutants."

"At any rate," Magneto interrupted, "you're once again misinterpreting and misrepresenting what Grace said. Her voices are not the only reason she's with me, and it's not for my money or to have a father for her baby."

"Then I think I must have missed something." Pietro said, sourly.

"Very likely," his father returned. "Or it's a case of Freudian forgetfulness—you aren't remembering because you don't want to."

"All right. So what's the reason?" Wanda broke in.

"Sex," Erik said, with assurance.

_What a beautifully stunned silence, _he thought, as he looked at the horrified faces of his children.

"I really wish you hadn't said that." Wanda closed her eyes and shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose as she did so.

"Blame your brother. He brought it up."

"I did not. She didn't say any such thing!" Pietro blurted out.

"Yes, she did. She was being tactful. She said you wouldn't want to hear some of her reasons, because you'd be embarrassed and revolted to hear her talk about me like that."

"She was right." Wanda said. "I am embarrassed and revolted, and she's not even here. Please don't push this any further, Pietro. I don't want to know any of the details, and in the mood he's in, he'll give them to us."

"Hardly. A gentleman never tells." Erik smiled.

"Since when are you—." Pietro began, but his sister raised a hand.

"No, don't bait him. Just…don't."

"All right, all right."

"So now the question is, what would you need to have happen before you'll propose on my behalf?" Erik spread his arms and looked from his daughter to his son.

"Hell would have to freeze over." riposted Pietro.

"Don't be flippant, son. Your sister doesn't like it. Answer seriously. Are you going to keep your old man from living in sin, or not? Not that I believe it's sin, but you're considerably more shocked at the prospect than I am."

"I—Oh, this is absurd!" Wanda said. "Why are you doing this, anyway? You were with Mystique for so long—Of course. The baby."

"She hasn't told him if it's his or not." Pietro told her. "What does that say about her?"

"It says," their father interrupted, "that it is none of your business. Let us divorce this issue from me for a moment, and put this as a hypothetical case.

"For example, let us suppose it were someone else who told you that he was thinking of marrying Grace Engstrom, as she is today. Charles Xavier, for instance. He has just told you he is thinking of marrying her. Who is she, you want to know.

"He replies that at forty-seven, she is younger than he is, but she is middle-aged. She's very attractive and intelligent, a good listener, and she makes him laugh. Moreover, she can demonstrably get along with his students and staff—she can understand and feel sympathy for the Toad. She makes a decent bowl of chili—I notice you don't seem to have choked on yours, Pietro—and she can even charm as hostile a person as Callisto into helping out in the kitchen."

"Who is Callisto?" Wanda asked.

"You'll meet her later," her father told her. "Where was I? Ah, yes. What else, you ask. You wonder if she is marrying him for his money. He replies that she is a successful knitwear designer who has written four books, that she made nearly three hundred thousand dollars last year after taxes, and that her net worth is somewhere around two million. Her only apparent debt is a home equity loan which she took out to buy her Lexus. Money is not a significant factor, and in fact, she would prefer to keep their finances separate because she is independent. She has her pride, as much as he has his.

"However, he adds, she is pregnant. After eight years of yearning and failure, after countless visits to fertility clinics, treatment after treatment, at the age of forty-seven, she is pregnant for the first time. For a woman of her age and with her history, a second time is unlikely." _A slight reassembling of the facts, but not inaccurate._

"Oh." Wanda said. She suddenly looked saddened. "I didn't know."

"But—." Pietro began, but Erik went on.

"Who is the father? If the man who wants to marry her is satisfied with the situation, does it matter? She is the woman he wants in his life. He is willing to take her as she is, for who she is, child and all, and help her raise it. Many families are formed by adoption and by second marriages. Many men love and raise children who are not theirs genetically, but are theirs by choice. Your own foster father, for example."

"Now you're making me feel bad." Wanda complained.

"Am I? That was not my intention. I was only trying to make you think. The Professor has now asked your opinion of the match. What would you say to him? You know no ill of Grace Engstrom. You know no good of her, either. You know nothing of her at all. That's not a rhetorical question. What would you say?"

"I guess I'd say I'd have to meet her." Wanda admitted. "You can't tell a thing about someone unless you know them yourself."

"You're twisting this all around," Pietro accused. "You're trying to trick us, like always."

"There's no trick involved, Pietro. I don't need your consent or permission to be with her. Or your approval. I merely wanted you to realize what you were doing. I'm not sure if there is any way in which you could apologize for your behavior, which was abominable—yours was not much better, Wanda—or make amends. The only factor which saved the situation is Grace's sense of humor. Most women, if they were received by a man's family as you received her, would have retreated to the nearest bathroom to sob her eyes red."

"I—all right. I'll apologize to her tomorrow. And I'll try to be nicer." Pietro scowled. "Don't expect me to propose to you for her."

"I'm not about to go that far, either." Wanda stated. "But I'll be friendier and more open-minded."

"That will be enough to make me happy. Do try to be sincere—and try to remember she is the injured party—not the other way around."


	36. Unspooling

A/N: Hey, where did everybody go? Seems like nobody's reviewing. Am I doing a good job? A bad one? It's too quiet in here...

* * *

_If they drop one more thing on me tonight,_ Grace thought as she followed the lion's directions, _I am going to unspool completely. I don't need anything more to do at this point; if one more thing gets added to 'suing the government, getting the Act repealed and anti-discrimination laws passed, living with the worst mutant terrorist in the world and repairing his relationship with his children, matchmaking for his daughter befriending all of mutantkind, and 'sending them home'—whatever that means—I'm going to crack. _

_Well, all right. I have to admit living with Erik does have its advantages. But otherwise I **am** going to crack._

The lion told her to take a right and go down the main stairs, and she did, absently. She was busy thinking over what 'Send them home' meant.

_To me, it would mean 'send them home to their families'—but those are the same families who abused, rejected, and threw them out to begin with. Even if their families were willing to take them back, would they be willing to go? Would the Toad be happy to reunite with the mother who used to stub out cigarettes on him? Would Callisto want to go home, even if they pleaded and said, 'We're sorry, we didn't understand. Please forgive us. We love you.'?_

_And how am I supposed to do it? Who's going to help? It's not like I could go family by family and mutant by mutant. Nor do I have the kind of influence to address large groups of people. _

_Why did I get tapped for this, anyway? Who did the tapping? Why do they talk to me?_

She realized she was heading towards the kitchen and the rec room, and she could hear the students chatting and laughing up ahead. Ororo came out of the elevator with a couple of the smaller children. "Grace—you're just in time for movie night. It's Pirates of the Caribbean. Won't you join us?"

"Go on in." said the lion. _Finally a sensible suggestion,_ she thought. _A couple of hours of Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush sounds just about right_.

"Sure," she said.

It seemed as if the entire student body was there, as well as Erik's people, even if they were hanging around the fringes of the group.

Grace could see Jean and Scott were on hand to help Ororo maintain discipline. "Grab a chair," Jean invited. "Have you seen this before?"

"Who hasn't?" Grace chose an overstuffed armchair.

Jean leaned over toward her and beckoned Ororo as well. "Captain Jack or Will Turner? I'd go with Will Turner."

"Captain Jack!" Ororo shook her head. "I don't know who you're kidding. Will Turner is a wet noodle."

"Barbossa." Grace said, naming the villain of the piece. She liked Geoffrey Rush's acting.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Jean asked.

Just as Grace was getting comfortable and starting to relax, it happened. The elephant on a bag of peanuts in the shell raised its trunk and said. "The girl in the gloves needs a hug."

_That's it._ "Excuse me." Grace grabbed the peanuts out of the hand of a very startled student and emptied them into a handy bowl, which she handed back to the boy. "I just need the bag," she explained, and stormed out into the hall.

"You mean Rogue? The same girl who gutted Erik in front of everybody at dinner? You want me to hug her?"

"Yes!" the elephant trumpeted.

"Why?"

"The girl needs a hug."

"That's what the fish potholder said yesterday. Why does she need a hug from me so bad?"

"Give the kid a hug." That was the lion speaking.

She pulled it from her pocket, and snapped, "Bite me!" at it.

It did. "Ow!" It wasn't a hard bite—just enough to startle her. She dropped it, threw the peanut bag to the ground, and ground her heel into the elephant.

"Why me? Why did I get this power? Why am I the one who has to spearhead the saving of all mutantkind? Is there a reason?"

"Yes," said the lion.

"What's the reason, then? Tell me."

"Go hug the girl in the gloves."

"No. I'm not doing another thing for you until I get some answers."

"Hug the girl, and I'll tell you."

"Answers first. Then I hug."

It shook its head. "Nope. First hug her. Then I'll talk."

"All right. This had better be good!" She strode back into the room, and went over to the sofa where Rogue was sitting with her friends. The girl started guiltily when she saw Grace standing over her.

"Ms—Ms. Engstrom?" Rogue stammered.

"Rogue, would you mind standing up for a second so I can hug you?"

"Ah—Ah—Look, Ah'm gonna apologize to him tomorrow. Ah know Ah screwed up."

"That's nice. Now let's hug. My little friend and I have a deal. I hug you like he wants, and he gives me some answers." She held up the lion.

Rogue got to her feet and stepped forward, looking as if she were going to her execution. "Okay—but you gotta be careful--."

Grace knew that contact with the girl's skin was dangerous.

She knew that Rogue absorbed memories, powers, and lifeforce that way.

She knew all of that, but the hugging habits of a lifetime took over, and as she hugged the reluctant girl, she touched her bare cheek to Rogue's fatal skin.

* * *

Rather than sticking to her like a loose filling to a candy apple, Ms. Engstrom simply folded up, leaving Rogue to grab the woman bodily to keep her from hitting her head on the snack table.

The room burst into uproar. "Rogue!" Ororo cried, shocked.

Suddenly Callisto was right in her face. "What did you do to her? What did you do?"

"Ah didn't do it! She did. Ah warned her!"

"Hey, kiddo." said an unfamiliar voice—young, male, and slightly nasal. "Down here."

It was coming from the floor near Rogue's feet. She looked down, and froze, even as Jean and Scott were taking the unconscious woman from her hands and laying her down on the sofa.

It was the little plastic lion. And it was winking at her.

Dr. Grey must have seen something in Rogue's face, because she asked her, "What's wrong?"

"That little red lion. It talked to me." She pointed at it. It had a funny face, sort of half-smooshed.

"Let's talk," it invited her.

"Of course," Jean replied. "That's her power."

"It says it wants to talk to me. What am Ah supposed to do?"

"Knowing what I know about her powers—I'd listen." Jean bent over Ms. Engstrom and began taking her pulse.

"You didn't hurt her," the lion told her. "I needed a word with you, and this was the only way you could hear me—and believe."

"It says I didn't hurt her. It says it wanted to have a word with me." Rogue told the room.

"Whoa! What's it like, having her powers?" Kitty asked.

"About the freakiest thing ever." Rogue replied. "And by this time, Ah've seen a lot of freaky. What do you want?", she asked it, picking it up off the floor very carefully.

"It's what _you_ want," The lion said, "Your powers don't come with an off switch."

"Ah know that!"

"How would you like to have one installed?"

"What?"

"All you have to do is learn to listen to us like she does. We'll fix it so you can turn your powers off and on whenever you want."

"Can't you fix it now? Ah'm listening now."

"Right now you're listening with her ears." It nodded in Grace Engstrom's direction. "You have to learn how to listen on your own."

"Ah will, Ah swear! But is she going to want to teach me, after what Ah said about...him?"

"Listening isn't something that can be taught like arithmetic. You have to learn it the same way you learned how to talk."

"Like Ah learned how to talk—? Wait a minute. What are you?" Suddenly she was worried—was she making a literal or figurative deal with the devil?

It shook its head. "When you're ready to understand the answer, you won't have to ask the question."

"Well, can Ah talk to you again like this before Ah make up mah mind? If she agrees?"

"Nope. This isn't going to work a second time. Your power won't have any effect on her again."

"If there was gonna be one person Ah could touch without hurting, she wouldn't be the one Ah'd choose." Rogue grumbled.

"You can touch anybody once you learn to listen. Talk to you later, kiddo." The lion went back to plastic immobility.

"Come on. Let's take Grace up to her room." Jean said. "Before anybody tells Magneto what happened."

* * *

It was just like coming to in the yarn shop, except that the faces were different. Grace recognized that she was in her guest room at Xavier's. "What happened?" she asked.

"He wanted to talk to me direct." Rogue held up the little lion. She looked shell-shocked—pale and trembling. Her voice shook as she spoke.

"Thank you. What did he—?"

Then Erik was there, furious and loud. "Wasn't what you did at dinner tonight enough, girl?" He seized Rogue by the shoulders and shook her.

"Ah didn't—!"

"Erik! It's all right." Grace sat up and put a hand on his arm. "_I'm_ all right. My little friend there wanted a word with her in private. She was about to tell me what he wanted."

"Oh." He let go of Rogue and stepped back. "My apologies." he told the girl brusquely.

"He said that if Ah learn how to listen to them on mah own, they'll make it so Ah can turn mah power on and off whenever Ah want."

"I'd think hard before I agreed to that." Grace said, considering it. "Believe me, you'd just be swapping one set of problems for another."

"They can do a thing like that?" Erik asked, his voice turning speculative.

"Apparently so." Grace said, and put out her hand.

Rogue placed the lion in it. "Ah hope you don't mind, but even if you do, Ah'm sticking to you like Ah was your shadow from now till Ah learn how to listen. Anything's got to be better than what it's like for me now."

"Let the kid tag along." The lion was back. "You're going to need her to deal with the firebird."

"Oh, I am, am I?" Grace brought it up to the level of her eyes. "You made a deal with her, but I made a deal with you. I hugged her, so now I want some answers.

"Why does the future of mutantkind all get loaded on my shoulders, huh? The lawsuit and the repeal and new laws and 'Send them home.' Why me?"

"You remember the saying, 'Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.'?"

"Of course."

"You wanted purpose in your life. Now you've got it."

"I didn't want purpose in life! I was perfectly happy. When did I ever—Oh."

_When I was sitting alone in that bar on my birthday, feeling like my life was meaningless, and humming 'The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.' Right before Erik turned to me…_

"But you weren't talking to me yet!"

"We were too. We've been talking to you your whole life. You just didn't know you were listening." It sniffed haughtily. "Not that you always _listened_."

"All right. If you have been talking to me my whole life, then why me? Why do you talk to me?"

"Because you listen."


	37. Kitchen Talk

A/N: Hello, hello! Ff seems to have stopped sending alerts and reviews for about a week, and so I shall thank you all for your reviews together, rather than individually. Thank you. I deeply appreciate every single review. Who can tell when ff will get its act together? Certainly not me…

Next chapter will be Grace and Erik, the chapter after will be the trip to the mall, and the chapter following that one should begin the legal proceedings, as Grace meets her lawyer, and they begin to put her case together.

* * *

Professor Xavier arrived a little too late for the dramatic events in the rec room. Seeing that his entrance would disrupt the fragile order Ororo and Colossus had restored, and since Jean sent him a telepathic message saying that the situation was under control—or at least no more out of control than usual, he chose to retreat to the kitchen, where he waited.

While he waited, he decided to fix himself a snack. Anyone at the school would gladly have fetched him any food or drink he wanted at any time, but he valued his independence and did things for himself whenever he could. Now he hunted down the manchego cheese in the fridge (a sheep's milk cheese, which no student and few adults would touch; any unfamiliar cheese was safe from hungry teens), sliced himself some crusty bread, chose a ripe pear from the basket on the table, and put the kettle on to boil.

Jean entered just as the kettle began to whistle. "Let me get that for you, Professor."

"That's quite all right, Jean—." But she had already used her telekinesis to pour the water into the pot. "Thank you. Now tell me, what happened? From what I gleaned, Ms. Engstrom entered the rec room and tried to commit suicide by touching Rogue."

"Nothing like that! No," Jean took a seat and explained up to the point at which Grace came back in to hug the young girl.

"Rogue warned her not to touch her skin, but Grace hugged her just like there was no danger in it at all. You know how some women hug—they go all out, they press their cheek against the other person's."

"Yes, I know." Xavier checked the tea—it was oolong, and very delicately flavored. He took the strainer of tea leaves out, and asked her, "Care for a cup?"

"No, thanks. Grace didn't freeze up the way I've seen others do when they touch Rogue—she just passed out cold and collapsed. Rogue caught her before she could hit the ground. You can imagine the reaction."

"I'm sure it was extreme—but it didn't erupt into violence."

"No. I thought for a moment Callisto was about to strike Rogue, but she didn't. As we were putting Grace on the sofa, Rogue said that the voices wanted Grace to hug her, because that was the only way the voices could talk to her directly—if Grace's powers transferred to Rogue."

"That once again raises the question of exactly what or who the voices are…" The Professor's brow furrowed in thought.

"You couldn't be more right. They offered her a deal—if she learned how to listen to them as Grace does, they'll give Rogue control over her other powers."

"Did she accept?"

"Yes—but apparently learning how to listen—whatever that might involve—isn't something that can happen instantaneously. At that point, we took Grace upstairs so that Magneto wouldn't barge into the rec room." Jean took a small bunch of grapes from the basket and started pulling them from their branch.

"That was wise of you. Has she come to yet?"

"Yes. She wasn't upset about passing out. In fact, she was a lot calmer about it than Magneto was. He blamed Rogue."

"Rogue's all right, I trust."

"Yes. And Grace herself is fine—completely unharmed. It seems that she had a deal with her voices—if she hugged Rogue, they would answer some of her questions. Of course I only heard her side of it, but the answers only upset her."

"What was she asking them?" Xavier poured himself a cup of tea, and inhaled the fragrant steam.

"Why they talked to her."

"Given that it seems that at least one other person has the capacity to listen to them—that is an excellent question. Why _do_ they talk to her?"

"Because she listens. Now that's such a stupid and obvious answer that it almost has to be a very simple answer to a question that's more complicated than it seems. Like when a child asks why things fall when you drop them, and you reply 'Because of gravity'." Jean replied.

"I'm inclined to think you're right. Explaining physics, mass, matter, and Newton to a mind not quite ready to grasp the concepts takes quite a long time. I have always breathed a mental sigh of relief if the child is satisfied with a simple answer. I hardly think Ms. Engstrom could have been satisfied with her answer."

"Oh, she wasn't," Jean grimaced sympathetically. "Especially since they wouldn't explain it. In fact, they shut up on her. She might have pitched a fit if we weren't there, but she just said she wanted to be alone with her little friends for a while. I reminded her that getting upset wasn't good for the baby, and left."

"I wish I had asked you to reapply the sensor discs today. I would have liked to have a full day of her brain activity to review. Jean, does it not seem to you that everyone is getting along unnaturally well?"

"I hadn't thought about it. We so rarely get small miracles that I'm just thankful for them when they come. Do you think there's some connection?" Jean inquired.

"I don't know, but given the past history of our people, unifying so peacefully and so quickly seems unlikely—yet here we are. They are not only not at one another's throats, they are watching a movie together."

"Of course now will be the moment we hear a tremendous crash as they tear into one another…" They fell silent, waiting for a sound. There was nothing. Jean Grey and Professor Xavier caught each other's eye, and laughed.

"Seriously, though. Why do you think Grace might be the reason for this friendliness? And how would she be causing it?" Jean asked him.

"Pure speculation on my part. If, as I suspect, her powers emerged because the hormones of pregnancy were the trigger, why might her mutation not center on motherhood?

"Consider this, Jean. Several years ago, there was a great deal of publicity given to a cat who rescued all five of her kittens from a burning building, one at a time, despite the intense pain and terrible burns she suffered in the process. Her instinct to save her own life was overridden by her maternal instincts—her focus was not personal survival, but genetic survival. If her offspring survived, she would, too, in a sense. If a cat can experience so strong a feeling, what about humans? We all know stories of petite, slightly-built women who somehow can lift the front end of a heavy truck off their child trapped underneath, thanks to adrenaline."

Jean thought for a moment, eating her grapes. "There are also cats that eat their own kittens, and then there was that woman—Susan Smith?—who drowned her two sons because they stood in the way of a romantic relationship with a man who was not their father."

"I don't deny that some individuals seem better suited to motherhood than others—and evolution favors those who are better suited because those whose children die have no descendants. Now we have Grace Engstrom, a mutant—highly evolved, gifted with powers we do not yet fully understand. We know she has always wanted children—that argues for a strong maternal impulse. What period in a woman's adult life is more vulnerable than when she is pregnant and caring for an infant?

"It may be that on some subconscious level, she is suppressing the violent tendencies of those around her, or enhancing their rationality, because an environment where people are not getting along is dangerous to her and her unborn child." Xavier finished.

"You're certainly making me think." Jean said. "All sorts of things happen to an ordinary woman when she's pregnant, for reasons directly connected to the baby. Her sense of smell becomes unusually acute, so she can avoid spoiled food which could make her ill and cause her to lose the baby. Food cravings can indicate deficiencies in her diet. Then there's the nesting instinct, when preparing a clean, safe place for the baby becomes extremely important, sometimes to the point of obsession. And Grace is the first mutant I know who is going to have a baby. I have no idea what is going to happen to her as a result."

"Nothing bad, I fervently hope." Erik strolled into the kitchen. "I heard a certain amount of thumping and shouting coming from behind her closed door. If she destroys anything in her frustration, don't worry. I'll make good on it."

"Erik—very good. I was hoping you would join us. Please, sit down." Xavier invited him.

"Certainly, but first I want to fix myself a plate of something. As you'll recall, I never finished dinner. Can we talk as I go through the refrigerator, or is it too serious for that?"

"Go right ahead. Did you leave when Jean and the others did?"

"I can tell when someone needs privacy. Yes, I did." Erik found the rest of the manchego, and added smoked salmon to his plate.

"I wanted to discuss tomorrow. It's Sunday, of course. I don't know what you had in mind for the day—."

"My plan was to go in to New York to scout out a suitable building to become our headquarters there. Sunday is a good day to look at real estate. What are your plans?" Magneto took a seat and a fork, and began to eat his impromptu meal.

"I believe we need to work out how to guard Ms. Engstrom before it becomes absolutely vital. Salem Center is a long way from Ann Arbor, Michigan—there won't be any mobs of anti-mutant activists on the hunt for her here. It is now as safe as it will ever be, and practicing here on campus is no substitute for real world experience. The visit to the Registration offices on Monday will be too brief. I would prefer to test this over the space of several hours." Xavier stated.

"I have an idea." Jean volunteered. "She has only about three pairs of underwear, a single pair of shoes, and a growing need for maternity bras, to say nothing of everything else. I propose we take her to the mall."

"Jean—that is an excellent idea. Erik, have you any input?"

"I have no objection, provided her voices have none. I trust that there will be enough people willing to go, and that she will at no time be left alone."

"Willing to go? Try eager. We'll take anyone who wants to come along, and make sure they understand it's a training exercise as well as a shopping trip. The mall it is, then." Jean concluded. "In the morning we'll take her down into the furniture storage room, so she can pick out what she needs for the attic, and after lunch, we'll go shopping. Now I think I'll go join the others in the rec room—there must be at least an hour and a half of Pirates left, and I really do love that movie. Good night—and don't forget the crackers for her morning sickness."

"I won't," Erik promised. "For that matter, I don't know if she got anything else to eat, and in her condition she shouldn't skip meals. What do you recommend I take up to her?"

"A multigrain muffin and a glass of milk. The muffins are in the bread cupboard."

"Thank you, Jean."

"You're welcome."

Once the red-headed doctor had left, Erik picked up his fork and toyed with a piece of smoked salmon on his plate. "It's been quite a day, Charles."

"For you more so than me, I suspect. I did little more than read and talk to Hank. I—Was there something you wanted, Kurt?"

Erik turned to see Nightcrawler hanging around the doorway rather self-consciously. "Yes, Professor. I have heard that Ms. Engstrom has visions which tell her she must proceed with this lawsuit and fight to save all mutantkind—but no one has been able or willing to tell me who they are. I was wondering if you could tell me. I—have heard of a similar case, you see, and I wished to compare the two."

"Certainly, if you wish to know. Come in." Xavier waved the young man in. "I'm curious to learn about this similar case. Is it well documented?"

"Oh, yes." The blue-furred mutant had his prehensile tail wrapped around a book. He brought it forward, opened it, and read, "At the age of thirteen and a half Jeannie Dark first became conscious of that manifestation, whose supernatural character it would now be rash to question, which she afterwards came to call her "voices" or her "counsel."

Kurt licked his finger and turned the page. "It was at first simply a voice, as if someone had spoken quite close to her, but it seems also clear that a blaze of light accompanied it, and that later on she clearly discerned in some way the appearance of those who spoke to her, recognizing them individually as St. Michael (who was accompanied by other angels), St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and others. Jeanne was always reluctant to speak of her voices. She said nothing about them to her confessor, and constantly refused, at her trial, to be inveigled into descriptions of the appearance of the saints and to explain how she recognized them. None the less, she told her judges: 'I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you.'

"Although Jeanne never made any statement as to the date at which the voices revealed her mission, it seems certain that the call of God was only made known to her gradually. Jeanne's voices became urgent, and even threatening. It was in vain that she resisted, saying to them: 'I am a poor girl; I do not know how to ride or fight.' The voices only reiterated: 'It is God who commands it.'"

"Just a moment. You're speaking of Joan of Arc!" Xavier interrupted.

"Yes, I am." Kurt confirmed. "If God sent such aid to France in her hour of need, why might He not send aid through Ms. Engstrom to mutantkind? So I wish to know who it is that speaks to her."

"I can show you an example right now." Erik looked around, reached behind him, and picked the fish potholders off the counter. "I can tell you for a fact that they told her she ought to hug Rogue yesterday, with the results you have no doubt heard of."

"_They_ spoke to her…?" Nightcrawler looked at the potholders without comprehension.

"I was here when they did. I can only report what she said, as I didn't share her vision." Erik was careful not to mock the young man, whose earnest sincerity was almost painful to witness. "Ms. Engstrom is not Catholic. She was raised Presbyterian, and is now agnostic. I think she would prefer to have dignified saints and angels delivering her messages, but she doesn't. Her visions have to have an animal face, from what we can tell, and they come through inanimate objects…rather as music comes through a radio. They seem to enjoy baffling and frustrating her as much as giving her directions and orders."

"Then she is not like Saint Joan." Kurt Wagner sounded sad about it. "She doesn't even believe in God."

"I'm afraid not," the Professor said.

"I had hoped—well, it does not matter. Gut nacht, mein Herren."

"Good night, Kurt." Nightcrawler teleported away.

"And good night to you, Charles." Erik put his plate in the sink, and got together a muffin, the glass of milk, and crackers.

_It has been quite a day indeed,_ thought the Professor as he bid his friend and sometime adversary good night in return. _And this is only the beginning… _


	38. Mending

Grace closed her eyes and slid a little further into the tub. The lavender bath oil was softening her skin, relaxing her muscles, making everything seem a little more manageable. _'Relax,_' the lion had said. _'We won't give you anything you can't handle._'

_I've trusted them so far. And if Rogue is going to start listening, too, maybe they'll ease up on me._

She heard someone enter the bedroom. "Grace?" It was Erik.

"In here." She sat up.

"First my bed, now my bathtub. Is nothing private anymore?" He sauntered in and leaned over her, his eyes traveling over her wet and naked form.

"Do you want it to be?" She gave him a flirtatious smile.

"No. You do improve the scenery…Here." He placed a glass of milk on the space at the end of the tub. "I also brought you a muffin, and some crackers for the morning. I didn't know how hungry you were, but I thought it couldn't come amiss."

"_Thank_ you," she said. _How could Magda have left this man?_ "I often like to have something to drink while I'm in the tub. Sometimes it would be chardonnay, but lately it's been iced tea. I'm glad of that; tea won't hurt Junior—but milk…" She took a healthy swallow, "…is much better for him."

"I see you brought your friends." He indicated the line-up on the toilet tank lid, where the monkey, the lion and the lamb were supervising her bath.

"Since they've started talking to Rogue, I'm not sure I want to leave them alone. If they're up to something, I want to know about it…They say they've been talking to me my whole life. Now I'm wondering when and why and what happened when I listened—even if I didn't know I was."

"It makes sense that they've been talking to you your whole life. After all, you've been a mutant your whole life. The faculty for hearing them has always been in place. Can you think of any time they might have been guiding you?"

"Plenty of times. When I was fifteen I was the tallest and thinnest girl in my class. One day a woman gave me a card and told me she was from a modeling agency. She said I could be the next Lauren Hutton. I was supposed to go to this address I didn't recognize. Alone. I wanted it to come true so bad, but this little voice inside me said: don't do it. I listened. A few months later, she was arrested along with several male accomplices. You can guess what kind of pictures they would have been taking of me."

"Unfortunately. And you think it might have been them?"

"I was fifteen, self-concious, insecure, and immature. I really wanted it, wanted to believe I would be that one girl out of all the millions who gets discovered…That little voice had to come from somewhere. Maybe it wasn't just my common sense talking.

"There were other times. Like when an acquaintance offered me a ride home from a bar at New Year's, and I said no, even though it was twenty below. He hadn't been drinking—but the driver of the car that killed him had been. Only it wasn't a voice—not a literal voice, not then. Care to comment on any of this? I'm addressing them, not you."

"Have they anything to say?" Erik unknotted his tie and removed it.

"Not a peep. They've been quiet ever since the lion there said, 'Because you listen.'"

"Speaking of listening, I'm going to continue to do so, but I want to disrobe. I'll leave the door open. If I don't respond, just yell."

"Fine with me…There have been times I ignored the voice. When I was twelve, I wanted to be friends with this group of girls, and they told me I had to steal a lipstick from the drugstore for each one of them. Of course I got caught."

"That reminds me. Do you know how Wanda and Pietro were making a living when I came across them? They were the best team of pickpockets and shoplifters in Europe. She would cause a disaster, and then he would speed in, faster than the eye could see or the camera could track, and lift the item or the wallet they were after."

"Do they hate me very badly?" she asked.

He appeared in the door, his jacket in his hands. "Hate you? No. They hate _me_; you're simply the focus at the moment. But they also love me, just a little. I hope to cultivate that, and weed out the hate, in time. In the meantime, I believe I've talked them round into being fair to you. I am profoundly sorry they treated you as they did."

"I'm a big girl. I can give as good as I get."

"Which is the only thing that saved the situation." He went back to undressing. She watched him.

What had surprised her most about Erik in Australia had not been his courtesy or inventiveness in bed—she had counted on his experience making up for whatever time had done to his libido—but that physically he seemed to be a much younger man wearing a elderly man's skin.

He had turned out all the lights, for which she was grateful at the time. She knew what her father had looked like without a shirt at the age she guessed Erik was—sagging inner tube of a chest, dotted with brown age spots, ropy arms. But although her hands told her his skin was looser than that of a young man, the texture slightly crêpey, the muscle under it was solid, and he didn't show any signs of physical diminishment.

Of course, the night before she had seen him naked, which only confirmed what she thought, and he had explained why. Time had been rewound for him. She watched as he drew off his shirt. "You've gone very quiet." he commented.

"Just thinking." _And watching your biceps…_ "Erik—when were you born?"

"In 1939. October 27th, to be precise."

"I knew you had to be at least twenty years older than I am. I didn't know how accurate I was."

"Yours is July 14th, 1959—which I am unlikely ever to forget." He looked at her significantly. "Am I correct?"

"You are." She drank more of the milk. "Two old fossils, as far as all these young people here are concerned. As if love only belonged to those who are young and perfect and beautiful."

"That would leave _me_ out, then. You, on the other hand…"

"You just have an endless supply of flattery, don't you?" She set the empty glass on the edge of the sink.

"I'll have you know these are not just cheap compliments. On the contrary, they're very expensive compliments, made from the finest quality materials by expert craftsmen. I happen to have a deal with the wholesaler, that's all."

He plucked a wire hanger out of the air and arranged his shirt on it. "I also get my supply of witty remarks from him as well. There was one I meant to make earlier when I introduced Pietro— that if you decided you liked my looks but you preferred a later model, there he was."

"That would have been a good line. I could have come back with something about how while the newer model might be faster, they left out the essential charm feature and the all-important intelligence gears. And that finishing too fast is not a desirable quality in a man, _if_ you know what I mean…"

"My dear! I wonder if that's why Crystal started sampling what else was out there… I shouldn't joke about my poor boy like that. He would be mortified. I was wondering why you made the promise you did."

"That I won't marry you until they ask me to be your wife? Several reasons. First of all, he was being such an obnoxious, stuffy little prig—I'm sorry. He is your son."

"You needn't apologize for that. He is an obnoxious, stuffy little prig, and self-righteous with it."

"True—I wanted to throw a shoe at his head, but I settled for that zinger instead. Another reason was that I wanted to throw the other shoe at your head, for bringing the word 'marriage' into this when I had only just decided to try living with you." She soaked a washcloth and massaged her left foot.

"Well, I did give you carte blanche to throw things at me, but I was thinking of metallic objects. Those I can deal with easily." He appeared in the doorway again, in a bathrobe so dark a purple it was nearly black.

"Don't think I don't know that. When I chuck things at you, it's going to be leather shoes, ceramic vases, and volumes of the encyclopedia. Maybe an occasional bag of garbage for variety."

"What have I let myself in for? At the time, I thought saying I was thinking of marrying again was a good idea—better than saying I was simply living with you. I wanted them to know I was serious about you. And I am. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable or pressured, but I do want you to know that."

"Thank you…Anyway, it wouldn't be possible for us to marry until the trial is over, would it? I could hardly go into court as 'Mrs. Lensherr.'"

"You could as 'Mrs. Xavier'. I don't mean you should marry Charles, but 'Michael'—my other identity. He has no blot on his name."

"Get to the church on time." That was a penguin on the bottle of liquid hand soap on the sink. A second penguin hurried up to him, a bridal veil on her head. They billed and cooed at each other.

"Oh, great! Well, if you want me to marry him, why didn't you say so before I made that promise to his kids!" she snarled in its direction.

"Mend what is broken!" declared the penguin bride.

"That was my other reason for making that promise." she told the penguin. To Erik she said, "The bird in the tuxedo just said, 'Get to the church on time.', and his lady friend came running. So they're in favor of wedding bells, but they didn't bother to say so until now. My final reason for making that promise was this: if the four of us, your children and you and I, have a good enough relationship that they _want_ me to marry you, if they want me to be there in their mother's place, then, beyond all doubt, that which is now broken would be mended."

"That's a very touching hope for us." He looked away. His next words came out slowly, each one drawn out as if by pliers. "I would like that. I would like it very much—but I have an idea, by now, of their limitations where I am concerned. I…killed their mother, you see. Not literally, not directly. Not even by causing her death through childbirth. She was so afraid of me that she killed herself. There; I said it."

He turned and disappeared into the other room.

_At least I was told how it happened in advance. It feels as if I've already rehearsed this scene—learned my part by heart. 'Mend_ _what is broken' sure has a lot of applications, doesn't it? _She stood up in the tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and left wet footprints as she followed him.

"We're back at this window again." she said, when she caught up to him. "You didn't kill her. You didn't make her kill herself. In a way, it's good that I learned about this through Rogue, through a third party. It gives me a perspective I wouldn't otherwise have. She was afraid, yes, but disproportionately so. She must have been emotionally disturbed beyond what happened when…when your daughter died, because a healthy woman wouldn't kill herself and leave her children behind. You are not responsible!"

He reached out and touched her face. "My dear, you are trying to make me feel better. It's not often that I rip the scab off these old wounds and look honestly at my past. Usually I keep them covered with a thick layer of self-deceit. Perhaps I need to do it."

"Well then, lance the hell out of them and drain out the infected stuff so you can heal properly. You have self-indulgent angst pus festering down in there, I can smell it. Quit licking your wounds and let's get on with life!" She made too energetic a gesture, and her towel fell to the floor. "Whoops. Kind of spoiled the dramatic effect, didn't it?"

He smiled. "Oh, I don't know about that. You certainly have me thinking about life…"

* * *

A/N: I have no idea when Erik was born—I just made it up, like I made up Grace's birthday. 


	39. The Mall: Part One

A/N: This chapter has turned out to be so long, it has to be split into two. The lawyer chapter will be two chapters from now, not next chapter...

* * *

Grace combed the part back into her hair, and mentally made a note to add 'curling iron' to the list of things she was shopping for that day. Her baby-fine, straight hair was cut in a layered bob which gave it texture, but it still needed help. 

"So you really designed the ice princess hoodie for Anthropologie? And the midnight garden cardigan? That's amazing!" Kitty was holding the hooded sweater up against herself, and looking in the mirror.

"And this scarf is gorgeous…" Jubilee wrapped a plush, shimmering scarlet rectangle around her neck and vamped.

"It doesn't go with your yellow top." Kitty criticized.

"I know, but with the fringes on it, it's just so Captain Sparrow!" She dissolved into giggles.

Callisto was not about to commit to anything warmer than, "Nice," but considering the source, that single word meant more than the others' effusive admiration.

The girls were allegedly helping her move into the attic, but the truth was that once the first sweater container had been opened, they had pounced. _They aren't doing any harm—might as well let them have a look_. "Okay—ground rules. The attic is my space as much as your rooms are yours. These garments aren't a huge wardrobe for me or anyone else, they're merchandise. That means don't come up here without permission, and no unauthorized borrowing, appropriating, trying on or even just looking. Got it?"

"Of course, Ms. Engstrom!" They went back to work, leaving the garments on the bed.

Grace looked at her reflection more closely. Her eye make-up had smudged at one corner; she fixed it and reapplied her lipstick. "I guess I'm almost ready for the mall."

Rogue was hanging around the side of the biggest wardrobe, trying to be inconspicuous. "Ms. Engstrom? What are all the things that have talked to you so far, if you don't mind mah asking?"

She glanced at the girl. "The first was the lion. Then there was a poster in my doctor's office—are you taking notes?"

The teenager had indeed pulled out a pocket-sized notebook and a pencil. "Uh-huh. Ah'm gonna write this down."

"Okay. The poster had a stork on it. Then there was the illustration of a baby alpaca on a skein of yarn, followed by every picture of an animal in an entire yarn shop. Next came my wooly friend the lamb—which was possibly the strangest of them all."

"Why?"

"Careful—my computer's in that one!" she called to the boy who was balancing it. "Because it told me to take it with me, and when I wouldn't—it was a display item, and not for sale—the owner of the shop, who's a friend of mine, gave it to me. Right off the shelf, no mention of payment, as a baby gift. I had to wonder if it hadn't told her to, just like it told me."

"Do you think it did?"

"Not out loud, at any rate. Don't expect to get straight answers from them. They won't tell you why they want you to do something. Like last night, they didn't tell me to touch you so they could talk to you. They just insisted that I hug you. They're going to order you around, trick you, harass you, annoy you…anything it takes. I think they think it's funny.

"The next of them was the brass monkey. Then I came here, and the portrait on the wall in the one parlor spoke. Not the person, but the dog by his feet."

"The dog…in the portrait…In which room?" Rogue repeated the words as she wrote.

"I'm not sure. It had blue curtains." _Curtains…If I don't get some curtains for up here, the morning sun is going to broil me—us! every morning. _Grace kept a dressmaker's tape measure in her purse. She pulled it out and stepped over to the nearest window.

"That's okay. Ah know the one. And then?"

"A stuffed owl and an illustration from the Raven, in the professor's office. Then came the fish potholders in the kitchen. That was when you came in--they told me you needed a hug. Listen—if you're going to write down what I say, write down this on another page. 72 by 84, times three…"

"Right."

"A stuffed moose head up here—I wonder where it got to?—was the one after that, and then a political cartoon of a donkey on an old magazine. Yesterday, there was the cow on the milk container and the chicken on the egg carton, followed by the elephant on the bag of peanuts and rounded out by the soap-dispenser sticker with the penguins on it. I think that's right. Oh, and the more specific they are, the more you should worry."

"Got it…"

"Um…hello?" Wanda appeared in the stairwell.

"Hello yourself." Grace returned, pleasantly. "Welcome to my attic."

"This is a nice space…I really came up because I wanted to apologize for what I said yesterday. I was horrible."

"You were surprised. I understand."

"Can we try and start over, as if yesterday never happened? Hello. I'm Wanda. You must be Ms. Engstrom." Erik's daughter smiled nervously.

"Mend what is broken!" said the lion, from the depths of her bag. _Okay, okay, already!_

"Yes, I am." Grace smiled back. "I'm glad Erik wanted us to meet. He's very important to me, and you're important to him, so that makes you important to me." _I draw the line at hugging her, but I will shake hands_.

Wanda took the hand Grace held out to her, and squeezed it briefly but firmly. "Thank you." she told the older woman.

"You're welcome."

"Is what you're wearing right now your own work? It's stunning. So sophisticated."

Grace smiled again, glancing down at the caramel sweater coat which she wore over a black turtleneck and black pants. The waistband of the pants was cutting into her flesh—not painfully, but enough to leave a groove. "Yes, it is. Thank you. There are some other pieces of mine on the bed—I just want to give my list a once over, before we go."

Wanda made noises of appreciation while Grace read what she had written down. Most of it would be easy to remember, such as bras, underwear and other clothes, but there were a few, more exotic items which had never appeared on her shopping lists before—moisturizing cream for stretch marks, for example. She added 'curling iron' and 'curtains' to the bottom of it before folding it and replacing it in her purse. "Would you like to come along to the mall with us?" she offered Wanda.

"If you'd like to have me, I'll be happy to."

"Then I guess that's it." Rogue, Wanda and Grace filed down the stairs.

Grace did not realize, however, that one of her pieces was now missing from the bed. One of the people who had gone back and forth through her attic had taken it. Exactly what was missing, and who took it, were known only to Grace's voices, whoever they were.

* * *

Meanwhile, Erik was making the rounds of open houses in New York, and not enjoying it very much, when he had an idea. "Cartier's, please, " he said to his taxi driver. _I am going to buy Grace a little something.

* * *

_

Bobby and Rogue put the latest shopping bags in the back of the mini-bus and locked it up again. "That woman sure can shop." Bobby commented.

"Well, she did lose all her stuff, pretty much. Remember when Ah first came here, Ah didn't have much more than the clothes on mah back."

"I remember."

Guarding Ms. Engstrom had been so simple—at least so far—that they were practicing covert watching, to prepare for when they might have to guard a witness who shouldn't learn he or she was being protected. While at least two people were overtly with the woman at all times, the others took turns tag-team watching, schlepping bags to the mini-bus, and doing some shopping of their own.

As they crossed the parking lot, Bobby glanced at her, and asked, "So—what do you think those voices of hers are?"

"Ah dunno, but Ah really hope they aren't guardian angels. Mah momma had this thing for guardian angels, and it got so's Ah couldn't stand the sight of them. Coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets—She even had this bumper sticker that said, 'Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly' on her car.

"Her favorite song was 'Angels Watching Over Me'. Ah mean, it sounded real pretty, but if you listened to the lyrics, it was all about how angels were watching and protecting the singer every step she made—like a speeding car running out of gas before it hit her, cause her angels wouldn't let nothing bad happen to her. Most of the song was about her congratulating herself on being so special. One time Ah asked her, if angels watched over everybody good, how come little Jon-Benet Ramsey got murdered? Was her angel off-duty? She got so mad at me, she nearly burst a blood vessel."

"I can see how that would get on your nerves. Hey, though, from what you said, if you want them to help you, you have to listen. Maybe that's how guardian angels work. Maybe the way they help people is to tell them what they have to do to be safe. What people have to do is listen."

"Oh, Ah sure hope not…"

"Hey." John—no, Pyro—was sitting on a wall near the mall entrance with a Starbucks cup in hand. Rogue and Bobby paused.

"Hey." Bobby began. "Did you know about Ms. Engstrom before this?"

"Are you kidding? You found out before I did. The first any of us heard was when Mystique got back yesterday morning, right about the time I woke up. I went downstairs to find her breaking stuff in the kitchen. That's how I found out."

"Look, Jean is calling me. Ms. Engstrom's done shopping at From Here to Maternity, and she wants to go on to Sephora. Ah'm supposed to meet her there with Wanda." Rogue waved a little goodbye, and went back into the mall.

"Later." Bobby called after her. He turned back to Pyro. "So what's up with you?" He took a seat further down the wall.

"I'm okay. It would be nice to know what the hell was going on. You know," Pyro picked some bits of loose mortar from between the concrete slabs and tossed them out into the parking lot. "I always thought the humans would win. Just because they have us outnumbered. There isn't going to be any future—and you know, neither Professor X nor Mags talk about one. Oh, the prof talks about how someday if we work hard and are good little muties, the flatliners are going to accept us, and Mags talks about the glorious day when we rise up and overthrow—."

"Hey, you should be careful about talking like that in public!" Bobby glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot.

"It's okay. Nobody's close enough. Anyhow, both of them talk talk talk about it, but neither of them offer any hope for it coming true for years. If ever. All I know is, if I stick with Mags, at least I'll go down fighting.

"Then yesterday he comes back, and instead of conquest, he's talking about litigation, and Ms. Engstrom's this visionary, and we have to get all this stuff done before she pops her brat…"

"I have to warn you not to talk about her like that." Callisto was suddenly just there, like a statue.

"Jeez, don't do that!" Pyro scolded her.

"Sorry. You were saying?" She seated herself on the wall as well, and folded her legs.

"Well, not only is he actually talking about a date, a real date, but he starts talking about what's going to happen when I have kids. Me! It's like the future is going to start next week. And it scares the shit out of me."

"Why? Nobody's going to make you have kids." Bobby joked.

"Because I can handle there not being any future, but if there could be a future, and all we have to do is make it happen—then what if we try and we fail? That one's going to hurt like nothing else."


	40. The Mall: Part Two

In Manhattan, Erik entered Cartier's flagship jewelry store. Such was his presence, whether he wore his body armor or a well-tailored suit as he did that Sunday, that the salesman jumped to attention.

"Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to Cartier's. What may I help you with today?"

"I would like to see some pieces from one of your signature lines. Something not too formal, which a woman of taste and sophistication might wear any day."

"I see. What age is the lady in question, if I might ask?"

"Forty-seven." _Not, in other words, my baby-doll, thank you very much._

"Very good. Thank you, sir. If you would care to step this way…"

* * *

Sephora wasn't simply a beauty store; it was _the_ beauty store. The biggest selection of products all brought together in a single, huge storefront.

Grace favored classic scents for the most part—Shalimar by Guerlain, Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, and L'Air du Temps by Nina Ricci, but she liked CK one and Sugar by Fresh as well, for a change of pace.

She browsed around the Philosophy display while Rogue peeled off her gloves and tried out the Demeter fragrances—a line which specialized in unusual 'environmental' scents, such as 'Laundromat', 'Angel Food Cake', and 'Gingerale'. Wanda was trailing behind, and she took over where Rogue left off, while Rogue caught up with Grace in the skincare aisle.

"I've tried others," Grace commented idly, putting several bottles and jars into her shopping basket, "but I always go back to the standards: Cetaphil and Oil of Olay. Oofh! Let me stay upwind of you. You went a little crazy with the testers." The girl smelled of half-a-dozen different fragrances.

"Sorry." Rogue stepped back.

"That's all right. You're young. I loaded myself up with so many different perfumes once my mother drove home with all the car windows down. In February, no less."

Rogue smiled. "It's funny, you know. You're older than mah momma, but you don't seem like it."

"Maybe that's because I'm not anybody's mother—yet. When I consider that I'm going to be over sixty when he's ready for college, I want to laugh and cry at the same time."

They turned into the make-up aisle. "What do you think of this?" Rogue held up a quartet of eye shadows, a subtly rich palette of brown: copper, bronze, taupe, and a silver-beige.

"For you or for me?"

"For me."

"No. What works for forty-seven doesn't work for seventeen—and vice versa. Go for Urban Decay or Hard Candy, they're made for young faces. Don't put that one back; I'll take it."

"All right…"

Wanda was still several steps behind. Grace was in the center of the aisle, Rogue up at the far end, and Wanda at the back, when the doves on the L'Air Du Temps box twittered and sang, "Watch out, it's the five finger discount!"

She immediately looked in Rogue's direction. "Not her!" sang the birds.

_Wanda?_ Grace used the mirror on a display to watch behind her as Wanda slipped a couple of lipsticks into her purse. _Oh, great. Erik said she and her brother were the best shoplifting team in Europe back when they were in their teens. He never said she was still doing it…He can't know about it. He would leave debris all over the landscape if he did._

"I'm about done here, how about you?" She hurried up to the front of the store.

It didn't escape her notice that a well-dressed woman—probably the store manager—was loitering around the counter—or that a security guard was hanging around outside it nonchalantly, not even looking in. _Of course they won't grab her until she walks out of the store. She won't have committed a crime until then, technically. How do I handle this? I'm sure she's going to use her power to cause a disaster and let her get away…_

…_but she'll still get caught on camera. And there'll be a big mess about a mutant incident at the Salem Center Mall._

"Mend what is broken!" The doves interrupted her train of thought. _That sure is their favorite phrase._

There was another woman in front of her; Rogue and Wanda waited with her until her turn came. She unloaded her basket, which was quite full, and then turned to Wanda. "You still have the things you were carrying for me, right?"

"What?" Wanda was genuinely nonplussed.

"Two Shiseido lipsticks..."

"A bottle of 'Wet Garden' cologne spray, a jar of La Mer moisturizer, and a Jo Malone scented candle." the doves told her.

"…a bottle of 'Wet Garden' cologne spray, a jar of La Mer—."

"Yes!" Erik's daughter opened her purse and started unloading her shoplifted items onto the counter with angry, jerky movements. As she hauled out item after item, Grace caught a glimpse of shimmering scarlet chenille, with black fringes.

_That's my scarf. The one Jubilee described as being 'so Captain Sparrow.' **Wanda stole from me.**_

_Why? _

_Why is she stealing from Sephora now?_

Wanda finished, and strode out of the store angrily. Grace gave the cashier Erik's card. "You'll have to punch in the numbers, because the strip doesn't work." She saw the store manager nod in her direction. "I'm sorry." she apologized to the woman. "I didn't…"

"I understand. You and your daughter" _(She means Rogue?!)_ will be welcome customers here whenever you want to shop. Would you like a separate bag for those items?" The manager was tactful, but clear. _Don't bring your friend next time._

"Please." Grace signed the credit card slip, and then it was Rogue's turn.

"I'm going to go after her." She told the girl. "Do you have enough money?"

"Ah'm all right. You go." She left the store.

Wanda was pacing around by a fountain when Grace caught up to her. "Wanda…" Instead of talking, the woman turned and walked away.

"Wanda!" _All right. This makes three Lensherrs I've wanted to bean with a shoe. This time I'm going to do it._

Grace pulled off her shoe and let fly, throwing not to injure, just to hurt a little. Years of playing with three brothers, not to mention several nieces and nephews, had left her with a decent pitching arm, so her footgear connected solidly with Wanda's head and bounced off.

"Oh!" Erik's daughter stopped dead, and whirled. "You hit me! You threw a shoe at me!"

"Sure did. Now let's talk."

"Why? Because you're going to tell on me if I don't?"

"No. Because I have another shoe. You won't like what I'll do with it if you don't. There's a coffee shop. Let's go sit."

"You are _such_ a cow." Wanda spat.

"Hey, you're a klepto, so where do you get off?" That was Rogue, hurrying to catch up. She retrieved Grace's shoe, and together they went inside.

Wanda followed, reluctantly.

"All right. Let this one be an object lesson to you." Grace told Rogue as they got in line. Wanda sat sulkily at a table in the corner. "If you do learn how to listen, and what they have you doing is anything like what they want me to do, you're going to learn things about people that you cannot, and I mean _cannot_ repeat. Whatever comes out now stays strictly among the three of us. No repeats of last night."

"You don't have to worry about me. Ah've learned mah lesson."

"Have you apologized to him yet?"

"No—." The young woman shifted from one foot to another. "Ah figured Ah'd wait and do it tonight at dinner. You know, cause Ah went and mouthed off in front of everybody, Ah ought to apologize the same way."

"As long as you're sure you're not just avoiding it."

Rogue looked up at her in surprise. "You're a born mother, aren't you? Your kid's not gonna get away with anything."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll come up with a way. I know I got around my mother."

They had reached the counter. "Yes—I'll have a tea-lemonade, please—and one of those smoked turkey sandwiches. And a piece of apple cake." _The baby is hungry too, apparently._ Lunch wasn't that long ago, but she found she was ravenous. "Order what you like, Rogue. Wanda?" She called over to the other woman as Rogue requested a frozen hazelnut-vanilla latte and a lemon bar. "What'll you have?"

"Nothing!"

"She'll have a tall French roast and a piece of chocolate cake." That was the monkey on the side of a bag of coffee beans.

"Plus a tall French roast and a piece of chocolate cake as well." Grace told the barista.

"Coming right up."

Rogue helped carry the food; Wanda gave Grace the strangest look when the coffee and cake were set in front of her. "How did you know…?"

"Oh, the voices in my head told me." A man at the next table gave her a funny look. "I have mental problems." she told him, airily, and smiled at him. He got up and moved away.

"Ah don't believe you just say things like that." Rogue said, a certain admiration in her voice.

"It gets easier all the time." Grace took the Sephora bag with Wanda's selections and handed it to her. "These are yours."

"I don't want them!" Wanda struck the bag from her hand; Grace retrieved it, and checked to make sure nothing was broken.

"These lipsticks are all wrong for you, anyway." She took them out of the bag. "They're too yellow a red. It's because Shiseido is a Japanese manufacturer. Their products are meant for people with golden skintones. Your complexion is too pink—you need a blue-red or a neutral red. Rogue, you like those Demeter fragrances—do you want the 'Wet Garden' cologne?"

"Sure!" the teen said, taking the bottle.

"Don't mock me. How can you sit there and talk like this?" Wanda was scowling.

"Because I'm trying to think of what else to say. I'd really rather not be having this conversation right now, thank you."

Rogue kept quiet, looking from one to the other as they sniped at each other.

"Then why are you bothering?"

"Because I don't have a choice, and that means _you_ don't have a choice. I'm supposed to help you. Now, obviously stealing right in front of not only all the store cameras, but in front of me, the woman who the universe likes to dump everybody else's problems on, was a cry for help. So I'm going to start by asking—What do you want that you can't get any other way but by shoplifting? It can't be the merchandise. Especially since you just rejected it."

"Leave me alone!"

"Uh-uh. Now I know your father's ethics are somewhat… flexible," Grace went on.

"You got that right!" snorted Rogue.

"—but I doubt he would be pleased to see that camera footage on the six-o'clock news, while the talking head goes on about an m-word incident in the Salem Center Mall. If it were an act of protest, sure. I think he'd be behind you all the way right on up to assassination, but not shoplifting cosmetics. For that matter, I don't think it would rest well with your brother either. If you don't talk to me about this now, I'm going to have to go to them, because you have a problem."

Silence. Grace ate some of her sandwich, and swallowed. "If you want your father's attention, all you would have to do is give him some of yours. If you want your brother's attention—Oh, God. Don't tell me there's some horrible Flowers in the Attic stuff in your past. I don't think I could cope with that."

"Flowers in the Attic? You mean—?" Rogue's lips formed the word _incest_. "With her _brother_?"

"Nothing of the kind." The lion spoke up from her purse.

"No! How can you think that? What kind of mind do you have?" Wanda protested.

"Well, I don't know what to think, since you're not communicating with me. It's a relief that there isn't, though."

A painted wooden toucan hanging on the wall as a decoration flapped its wings. "Tell her the only way your child can take her place is if she doesn't take it herself." It sounded Jamaican.

"You know," Grace relayed smoothly, "the only way my baby can take your place—or your brother's—is if you don't take it yourself. I have three brothers, eight nieces, and six nephews, and I love them all. I even like my sisters-in-law. Hearts are surprisingly elastic. No matter how many people you fit into one, you'll find you can fit even more."

Wanda's reply was a long groan. "How can you seem so kind and understanding even when I know you're faking it?"

"Faking it? Who says I'm faking it? I'll be the first to admit I'm not crazy about this situation, but I'm doing my best here." Grace drank her tea-lemonade.

"Mystique was their medic, and her attitude was that if nothing was broken and there wasn't any blood, they shouldn't bother her about it." the toucan added.

_Oh_. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not—Misty. You might try not reacting to me as if I were."

"Then what are you doing with him? If you are as nice and normal as you seem, you would be running for the hills, not living with him. He _uses_ people."

"She is right about that." Rogue put in.

"See? She knows. You might think he loves you—_he_ might even think he loves you—but he doesn't. He can't love. He can't love anybody." Wanda picked up her coffee in both hands, as if to warm them, and took a long sip.

"Now I think we're getting to the heart of the situation. First I'm the evil one, and you don't want him getting involved with me. Now he's the evil one, and I shouldn't be involved with him. Maybe neither of us is that bad, and neither of us needs protecting. And if he didn't love you, he wouldn't have spent years trying to keep a connection open between you."

"He killed my mother." Wanda looked up, her eyes burning.

"Your mother killed herself, Wanda. She hadn't seen him in months, he had no idea where she was, and he had no idea you existed. I know that's a hard one to live with, but I suspect that once you accept that, you'll be able to forgive him—and her. Maybe you'll even be able to forgive yourself."

Wanda started to cry.

* * *

"I can think of something worse." Callisto said. "Knowing there could be a future, but being too nihilistic or apathetic to get off your ass and do your part to make it happen."

"I never said I wasn't going to do my part! I just said it scared the shit out of me!" Pyro was stung.

"That's all right, then." Callisto got up and stretched.

"Yeah," Bobby added. "All we can do is our part. And at least now we have some idea what it is."

* * *

That night after dinner, once Erik and Grace were alone together in his room, as the attic wasn't quite ready for occupants yet, once they had talked about the day each of them had had, (she did _not_ tell him about Wanda's escapade) after he showed her the print-outs on the four properties he was considering, and talked about the pros and cons of each, yet before any clothing came off, he put his hand inside his jacket, and brought a box out of the inner pocket.

"It's nothing very big," he warned her, "so you needn't get flustered or feel awkward. Also, in its way, it's a very practical gift for you." He gave her the box.

"Cartier's?" She knew enough about jewelry to know that 'nothing very big' was relative, and Cartier's was a king of the jewelry world. But it was the wrong size and shape for a ring box—too flat and too rectangular. She undid the ribbon, and took the velvet covered box out of the cardboard one.

Opening it, she beheld a flat, round pendant on a black silk cord. It was gold, the rich, deep color of 18 karat gold, and on it was a panther head in three-quarter profile, black onyx spots against the gold, and a vivid green jewel for an eye. "Mrowwwww. Helllo!" it growled, in a cultivated British voice.

Erik was watching her anxiously. "I thought that you might not always be able to take an animal with you in your purse, and that you might like one which wasn't quite so childish. If you don't like it, or if your voices won't speak through it for some reason, I'm sure it could be returned or exchanged."

She was speechless for a moment. _I'm never going to get over this one. I got over Jack. I fell out of love with Aaron—and with Colin, let's face it. My pride was wounded more than my heart where Jeremy was concerned. But this is the one that's going to last for the rest of my life. This is it. **He** is it._

Her eyes were suddenly wet and stinging, so she swiped at them clumsily, like a child. "No, he's beautiful. He already spoke up and said 'Hello.' I need a tissue…Thank you," she said, as he handed her one.

_I'm almost angry, which is stupid, but so is everything about this relationship. It started as a bar-pick up and wasn't supposed to be anything but a one-night-stand, and now—now we're having a baby and living together, and we haven't even spent seven consecutive days together, and he surprises me with this…_

"I never told you what it means that you took my voices seriously from the moment you heard about them. You never even looked at me funny, as bizarre and ridiculous as this power is…"

"Here now—you're crying in earnest. I didn't think I'd make you cry like this. Let me get my jacket off, and you can cry into my shirt all you like…"

"…and this has to be the most thoughtful present anybody has ever given me in my life."

_And I love you._

That part she didn't say.

Not yet.


	41. Meeting the Prince of Sharkness

A/N: Getting my ducks in a row…

With Grace's lawsuit about to get underway, I'm going to have to bring in some villains. (other, of course, than Erik and company) That means I have to do what I should have done a long time ago, which is to figure out the backstory and when this is going on. I hinted at it before, but now I want to explain it.

Here goes: This is an AU. Things start happening differently somewhere during X2. Professor Xavier spotted that something was wrong with Erik on one of his visits—dilated pupils, bruises, difficulty concentrating, generally spaced-out, courtesy of Stryker and his son's cerebro-spinal fluid. He complained to someone.

Before Stryker's abuses could be fully investigated, however, Erik escaped as seen in the movie, and went to the school to prevent the attack. What with one thing and another, everything got blown open, and exactly what the president feared would happen did: injured mutant kids all over the six o'clock news. No Alkali Lake, no kidnappings, no heroic sacrifice on the part of Jean.

When the dust settled, the president was impeached, and stepped down in favor of his VP, who is now the president, pretty much everything Stryker was up to had been revealed, and Stryker went into hiding with his lobotomized son, Jason, and his knuckle-cracking bodyguard, Lady Deathstrike; Stryker is therefore alive and will resurface.

Erik, meanwhile, was acquitted of wrongdoing in his escape, because he was under the influence of a psychotropic drug administered to him against his will—the cerebro-spinal fluids again. He was held not responsible for his actions. He was also granted amnesty for his actions at Liberty Island, partly because this was a hell of a lot easier than trying to recapture him. He received a stern warning to behave himself. Of course he hasn't been completely good, and reassembled his Brotherhood.

Therefore, Stork begins shortly before X3. The Act was passed, Hank is the government's token mutant. Worthington Labs is working on their 'cure', which, as hinted at the end of the movie, has only a temporary effect; Stryker is working on his—the one which Erik and the Professor speculate about—a vaccine against having a mutant child in the first place. Maddox and Juggernaught are being chauffeured around in their mobile prison. Can't think of anything else…

* * *

The so-called Prince of Sharkness arrived ten minutes early; Scott met him and led him to the professor's office, where Hank McCoy greeted him with "Mr. Angevin, so good of you to come. Ms. Engstrom, may I introduce Mr. Robert Angevin, attorney-at-law? Mr. Angevin, this is Ms. Grace Engstrom. I asked you here on her behalf. She has a story to tell which you may find of interest. This is Professor Charles Xavier, the headmaster of Xavier's School for the Gifted, and his cousin, Mr. Michael Xavier." 

Angevin was much as McCoy had described him; a handsome man who looked deceptively young and deceptively pleasant, with white-gold hair and blue eyes. He was on the shorter side of medium height, and he had a sunny, open smile.

_I am not inclined to like him,_ Erik thought, _and not merely on the grounds that he is human. He looks so Aryan that he might have stepped directly off a 'Hitler Youth' poster._

The introductions having been made, Angevin sat. The Beast cleared his throat, and began, "First of all, I must say that I am not here officially. I did not set this meeting up. I know nothing about this matter; I did not even recommend you to Ms. Engstrom. I have to maintain total deniability."

"I understand. Just as I also understand that the gentleman to your left is Michael Xavier, not Erik Lensherr. I would swear to this in a court of law. I recognize Ms. Engstrom from coverage of that incident in Ann Arbor a few days ago. Am I to assume this has something to do with that?"

"Yes, but not in the way you might think. I'll let Ms. Engstrom tell her own story." The Beast turned to her.

"Thank you, Dr. McCoy. About four months ago, I went to my doctor for my annual pelvic and mammogram. While I was there, I submitted a sample so my genes could be screened for the breast cancer genes…" Grace related what happened after that, handing the attorney papers from her medical file as she went.

_He recognized me right off. He is observant, at any rate_. Erik glanced at Grace to see how she reacted to that. She raised a quirky eyebrow. His gift gleamed against the charcoal colored top she wore, gold and a flash of green.

When he had given it to her the night before, she had looked so lost, so stricken and saddened—vulnerable, in other words. _Well and good—I have shown her enough vulnerability of late._

"…and this morning, my agent called me to tell me the Australian Aborigine Spinner's Collective has pulled out of the deal, and they're holding me responsible for the yarn labels that have been printed, as well as other related costs.

"I want to sue Marine Starcare for violating my rights under the Genetic Privacy Laws, and to challenge the constitutionality of the Mutant Registration Act on the grounds that it is a form of discrimination and has caused me pain and suffering both personal and financial. At the same time, I want to petition the court to enact anti-discrimination laws extending to mutants the same rights and privileges as other minority groups, including the right to use one's powers in public or private, even as one has the right to freedom of speech." she concluded.

Angevin whistled in appreciation. "After that, making water flow uphill will be easy."

"There are people on this campus right now who can make water flow uphill without breaking a sweat," Erik put in. "If it were that easy, we wouldn't need you. Are you interested in this case?"

"I suppose Dr. McCoy has told you about my son." Angevin turned to face him full on.

"He said your son is a mutant, yes. Are you afraid?" Erik challenged him

"Of him? I am monstrously self-centered, Mr. Xavier. My ego is so large that if it were visible, it could be viewed from orbit with the naked eye, like the Great Wall of China.

"I am conceited enough to believe that if I do my job right, if I devote the same sort of time and attention to my son as I do my career, if I tell him bedtime stories and carry him on my shoulders, play ball with him in the park, make sure he eats his vegetables and brushes his teeth, if before his impressionable eyes I prove myself a living example of a good husband and father, a good friend, a good employer, and a good servant of justice, then no matter what his powers are, however fearsome and strong he may be, he will not only never harm me, he will never wrongfully harm anyone on Earth, be they mutant or sapient. No, I am not afraid of him.

"I am afraid _for_ him. I have been mortally, desperately afraid for him ever since we were told he is a mutant. To answer your previous question, yes, I am interested in this case. I have been waiting for this case. If I did not take it, I could never again claim to love my son."

"You are a very unusual man, Mr. Angevin." _I may have misjudged him._

"I have been told so before, Mr. Xavier. Ms. Engstrom, before you retain me as your counsel, I would like to ask you if you understand exactly what you are getting into. The case against Marine StarCare is so open and shut that they would beg to be allowed to settle out of court, for whatever sum you named—if they were the only defendants in the case, that is.

"Involving the Mutant Registration Act puts this on another level entirely. If you thought what happened to you in Michigan was bad, with the mob baying for your blood, let me tell you it will be ten times worse. You will be the most hated woman in America. You will be spat on, assaulted, parodied, reviled. Your life will be in danger."

Professor Xavier stirred. "We are to provide protection for Ms. Engstrom for as long as she will need it. She will live here, on my private property, and whenever she will have to venture off the grounds, it will be with people around her to guard her. We are prepared to offer the same to you and your family."

"It will be needed, sooner or later. Are you prepared to go through with this, Ms. Engstrom?"

"Yes, Mr. Angevin."

"Then do you have a bill on you of any denomination, however small?"

"I—no. I can go get my purse…"

All three mutant men stirred—Hank and Erik reaching for their wallets, Professor Xavier for his desk drawer. Grace was presented with her choice of dollar bills. She hesitated, and chose Erik's. "Thank you. I'll pay you back later."

"No need."

She handed the money to Angevin. "Thank you. You are now my client, and this is the sum and total of not only my retainer, but the fees I will charge you. There are some things one does not do for money, and this is one of them."

"But you will be out of pocket for your expenses…?" she asked.

"I have very deep pockets, Ms. Engstrom. Moreover, all our costs will be reimbursed by the defendants automatically when we win."

"'When we win', Mr. Angevin?" Erik could not resist challenging him.

"Yes. When we win, Mr. Xavier. I have never yet walked out of court without the result I wanted, and I want this one. I want it bad."

Hank put in, frowning, "Mr. Angevin, you have not won every case you took on. How do you reconcile that with your statement that you have never walked out without the result you wanted?"

"There were some cases I did not want to win, Dr. McCoy, for whatever reason. Now, is there a private room nearby? I must speak to my client under the umbrella of confidentiality."

"You can use my office," the Professor volunteered.

"Thank you—and especially _you_, Dr. McCoy. I am in your debt."

"Not in the least, Mr. Angevin. Not in the least."

* * *

After the three men had left, Angevin turned to Grace. "All right—now is the time to tell me everything you haven't told me yet." 

"Such as what?" She spread her hands out. "Ask away."

"You might begin by telling me about your relationship with Magneto. Is he the father of your child?"


	42. Unexpected

_I thought Robert Angevin wasn't a mutant. How does he kno_w…? Grace panicked for a moment.

Her panther spoke up in a clipped, highly British voice. "You know my methods, Watson. Apply them."

_Watson? That has to be from Sherlock Holmes. Holmes wasn't psychic; he made all his deductions through keen observation. What could Angevin have observed about Erik and me? _

"I could have gone upstairs for my purse, and although all three men offered me a dollar for your retainer, I chose to take his money."

"Thank you for not denying it. There was that," Angevin admitted. "but it was the look you two exchanged earlier, when I identified him. I'm a married man. I know a married look when I see it. His look said: _What do you think of that?,_ and you replied, _Pretty impressive. Let's see what else he's got._ Only married people have that kind of non-verbal communication."

"But we're _not_ married." she protested.

"Get to the church on time!" That was the panther again.

_I'm doing my best with Wanda. The scarf was back on the bed this morning, and she never said a word about it. I hope that's good._

"Maybe you don't have a piece of paper saying so, but everything else is in place. The baby is none of my business. I just wanted you to know I don't miss a thing. May I ask who knows about your relationship? Of the people not currently on this campus, that is."

"A mutant woman named Mystique. She's a shape changer. She was—He broke up with her to be with me."

"Not good, but she will lack credibility. And?" The lawyer made notes.

"Another mutant, Sabertooth. He might be on his way here, he might not. I get the impression he's of below average intelligence."

"Again, a credibility issue. This is a disaster, but it may be a containable one. Any others?"

"I told a friend of mine named Eleanor something about it," _And my little friends never said a word. I wonder why not?_ "But I didn't name names."

"Any more? What about people like the maitre d' at the your favorite restaurant? The owners of the bed-and-breakfast where you spent a weekend together? Anyone who would recognize you as having been with him, even if they didn't know your names."

"All our courtship took place in Australia. I—oh, how do I put this? This was never intended to lead anywhere. It was a brief relationship, and we deliberately didn't exchange contact information. We didn't see each other again until four days ago, and now you're saying we come across as married. I don't know why."

Angevin's eyes were sympathetic. "It does happen that way sometimes. Strangers one day, practically married the next."

"Not in my world, it doesn't!"

"If I recall correctly, Magneto is Jewish. His lawyers had to intervene to get him a diet free from all pork products. Ask him to tell you what a 'bashert' is. Now I have some other questions…."

He led her through a maze of queries and answers, until at last he put away his notepad. "That'll be enough to get me started. Now, do you have any questions?"

"Yes. What happens next?"

"Next I and my staff do a lot of investigation. We'll look into Marine StarCare's business practices, research the Mutant Registration Act until we disembowel it, things like that. I'll keep you appraised of what we find. Then I have to go to both defendants, the government and Marine StarCare, lodge your complaint, and give them a chance to settle out of court.

"That is when things will get interesting. Both of them will try to get you to settle for less than what you want. Technically they should make all such offers through me, and I should then relay them to you, but don't expect them to abide by that. They will start by offering you money and other valuable considerations will follow. Some of those considerations will be threats."

"I won't accept anything, I won't sign anything, I won't cave, and if they try to threaten me, they'll have to get through a lot of people first." Grace gave him a cool, level look.

"Excellent. Remember that. The government will also try to get you to separate the two cases, because without Marine StarCare's obvious guilt in the matter, your case against them will look weaker to a jury. Marine StarCare will try to do the opposite, because it will be less costly for them. They won't have to pay much more than your legal costs if you get the Act rescinded and the laws changed—just whatever fine the government imposes for breaking the Genetic Privacy laws."

"I won't agree to any separation."

"Good. Once they have failed to settle to your satisfaction, we file a complaint with the court and serve it on the defendants. They have to file an answer within thirty days. Then both sides exchange information. There are no 'Perry Mason' last minute surprises any more, based on withholding information from the other side. Coming up with a whammy is punishable by law."

"I understand." _I hope my little friends do, too. They're being awfully quiet._

As if in answer, the stuffed owl on the bookshelf flapped its wings and said, "Don't forget to tell him the venue." It sounded very young and feminine.

"Oh. For various reasons, I want to file the complaint in New York City's federal court."

"I was going to ask you that. Thank you. The next step is to get ourselves a trial date. Don't expect it to happen fast."

"Tell Big, Blue, and Furry to practice his golf game." the owl instructed her.

_Big, Blue and Furry. That means Dr. McCoy. Does he even play golf?_

"Make sure he leaves the ringer on his phone." The panther put in. "You never know when a friend in a high place might feel like a game."

_I am not going to acknowledge them. No matter how much I want to. This is practice for court._

"Hey." The owl raised a wing to whisper at Grace, as if it cupped a hand around its mouth. "Doesn't that panther have the _sexiest_ voice?" It giggled like a preteen girl.

_All right. Now I know for sure they think driving me to pull out my hair is funny._

"Are you all right, Ms Engstrom? You've gotten very quiet." Angevin inquired.

"I'm fine, thank you. I was just thinking…that I would like to have this over with before the baby is born."

"That's unlikely. Is there a particular reason why?"

"I would like to bring him into a world which is safer for him than it is now." she replied.

Robert Angevin's face froze up for a moment; then he said, very softly. "We all want that for our children."

"What's your son's name?"

"Hugo. He was named for my wife's late father. Here—here's his picture."

Angevin was of a different generation than Erik, and so his son's photo was on his camera phone. Grace took the phone and looked at the image of a sturdy toddler sitting on a kitchen floor, pots and pans scattered around him. He had a wooden spoon in his hand, and he looked about to break into a huge drum solo, bouncing up and down and shrieking with laughter as he banged and smashed with all his might.

"He's adorable, but he looks like he would run you ragged."

"Oh, he does. Both of us."

"I take it he gets that carroty hair and those velvet eyes from your wife." _What will my son look like, I wonder? Mine and Erik's… Is it horrible and catty of me to hope he's more intelligent than Pietro? I wonder what color hair Erik had when he was young, and when he started to turn silver. Pietro is as frosty haired as his father, and he's only thirty-five._

"Yes. This is Ella. Doctor Uzzano, professionally." Angevin took the phone back, pressed a button, and returned it. His wife's features were too strong and angular to be called beautiful, but the radiant happiness in her face, and the warmth of her brown eyes made up for that.

"Did you take this picture?" she asked, handing the phone back to him.

"Yes." He smiled, and his face lit up. _He loves her very deeply. No wonder he knows about marriage._ "Getting back on track, after we have a date, I'm going to get together a focus group, a number of people who are representative of the type of jurors you'll get. We'll hold a mock trial, perhaps more than one, to see how your case goes over. A lot will depend on the opposing attorneys. With any luck, we'll get the most rabid anti-mutant hardcases out there."

"Do you mean bad luck or good luck?"

"Oh, good luck, of course. I hope we'll get the worst assholes out there. I hope they attack our witnesses, spew venom all over the court, froth at the mouth and chew up the carpet. The worse they are, the more people will sympathize with you. They'll see exactly what it means to be a mutant."

"What will you and I be doing while they're chewing up the flooring?"

"I will be Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. I will be the Boy Scout, the guy the jury wishes their daughters would bring home—and you will simply be you."

"Do you really have the nickname of The Prince of Sharkness in legal circles?" It was hard to see it.

"Goddamn right I do. Barracudas are kinder than I am—but I'm on your side. I identify quite strongly with my clients, Ms. Engstrom. Their fights are my own. It's just that sometimes being merciless means being the nicest guy on the planet."

* * *

"I was expecting her to be just like Mystique, and she isn't." Wanda told her brother. He was out of the infirmary now, and getting around on crutches. They were sitting on a bench under a maple near the mansion; the occasional scarlet or orange leaf drifted down around them.

"She was faking it. If Father thinks the reason she's with him is sex, then she has to be a good actress."

"Let's not get into that, please. This is serious. I…tested her yesterday. I didn't think of it that way when it happened, but that's what I was doing. I did something I'm ashamed of now, and she saved me from making a complete fool of myself, making things worse for mutants, hurting you and disappointing Father." She picked up a leaf that had landed by her feet and smoothed it out on her knee, uncurling the edges.

"Wanda—what did you _do_?"

"I think I'd rather not talk about that right now. It gets worse. Instead of thanking her, I got angry at her. Very mature of me, I know. She got mad right back at me, and dragged me into a coffee shop, where she bought me chocolate cake and gave me the scolding I deserved."

"What? How dare she? I'll—."

"Are you not listening to me, Pietro? I pushed her to it. By the time she was done, I felt like I'd been turned inside out and given a thorough cleaning. Not like I'd been slashed to pieces. She acted…

"She acted like she was my mother."


	43. In The Danger Room

"But I don't even care very much for golf!" Hank protested. "It's a terrible way to ruin a day which might be much better spent getting caught up on one's reading. I'm not precisely in great demand as a partner, either."

Once again, they were in the infirmary, and Jean was reapplying the sensor discs to Grace's face and head.

"Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger." Grace Engstrom shrugged. "It might not come during the day, either. The panther said to keep the ringer on your phone. I know that some golf courses have electric lights for night games."

"Hold still for a moment," Jean scolded. "Just a few more on this side…"

"You don't know when or who? Not even a hint?"

"I wouldn't expect it to come before my complaints are filed and the defendants file their answers. That would be pointless. 'A friend in a high place' is all the information I have on who it will be. That gives you at least a month to a month and a half to practice, so get swinging."

"Who do I know who likes golf and could get us a timely court date?" The Beast put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his hand through his hair. "Why would he—or she, I suppose—be calling me? Nobody owes me that big a favor as yet."

"Perhaps it will be someone with a secret mutant in the family who wants the Act repealed, but can't allow themselves to be linked to the suit openly." The professor suggested.

"It's hardly likely," Hank complained.

"Hey." It was Callisto. "Magneto is in the observation room and everybody else is in the Danger Room. We're waiting on all of you."

"Hang on a minute. I have to stick dots on you next. You're done, Grace. Callisto, have a seat."

"Join the party," Grace pointed to her own sensors. "The worst of it is, they itch after a while."

"All right." Callisto submitted to the procedure, while Jean talked.

"Your skin is more sensitive right now. It's the increased blood volume and heightened oxygen absorption. "

"All part of the wonder of impending motherhood." Grace said. "I have to admit I'm feeling much better than I have a right to—according to the book I read."

"I suspect your healing factor is compensating for that. Could you bend your head down, please, Callisto? Thank you."

_It may be more than just her healing factor,_ Professor Xavier thought_. A mutation focusing on childbearing and motherhood would almost certainly ensure an easy pregnancy and birth._

"Callie, yesterday I bought a couple of lipsticks that would work well with your skin tones. One is vermilion, the other cinnabar. Would you like to have a look at them later?" Grace asked.

"Sure." The young woman shrugged. As unmoved as she sounded, the corners of her mouth turned up.

_Indeed, the more I think on it, the more possibilities occur to me. Humans cannot easily give birth without help; relationships and social networks are of critical importance at such a critical time. Therefore, she has a gift for establishing connections._

_Even further: Erik himself said that a child thrives best with both parents in the home. She may be influencing him emotionally, without knowing she is doing so…_

_Or perhaps I am reading too much into what is simply her personality. One can overanalyze a phenomenon. Yes, technically speaking, Botticelli's Birth of Venus is merely various minerals and organic compounds daubed on a wall with an animal hair brush. But to reduce and oversimplify all its beauty and significance until they are obliterated is an insult to the human soul._

"Okay, all done. Off to the danger room with the two of you. We'll be along in just a moment." Jean went to the infirmary computer.

"So you have not only Ms. Engstrom, but everyone below the rank of teacher fitted up with sensor dots today. Dare I ask why?" Hank McCoy looked from Jean to the Professor.

"I want to see what effect, if any, Ms. Engstrom has on those around her." Xavier replied.

"What do you suspect?" asked the Beast.

"That she has empathic powers we did not detect on our first scans. I don't believe she's doing it intentionally; I think that in her earnest desire that everyone should get along, she is influencing them to do so. But come—I'm sure they're all getting impatient."

The real-world training exercise of the day before had been valuable, but training under more intense situations—even if they were simulated—was needed. Therefore Grace, dressed in a set of the school's exercise sweats, was going to be the target of various attacks, varying in type and severity and ranging from an over-excited mob of photographers to an all-out pitched battle. The missiles aimed at her would be paint, which was why she was wearing the very unglamorous sweats and a bandanna over her hair. If she was hit in a crucial area such as her head, neck, or body, it counted as a death; in a non-crucial area such as a limb, a wound, and if she were hit too many times in a non-crucial area, she was to be considered too injured to move on her own.

"At last!" Erik said when the three of them entered the observation booth. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Xavier answered.

"Sequence initiated," Magneto informed the danger room through the microphone, and pressed the enter key. "I added a few refinements to the programming. I had the leisure to go over the last several sessions on tape, and it seemed to me your students were becoming entirely too comfortable with the program as it was."

_Oh, dear. What can he have come up with?_

Jean slipped into her seat in front of another computer, and linked to the scanning computer down in the infirmary. Xavier took a spot where he could see both the Danger Room and her computer screen.

As he watched, the room became the plaza in front of a courthouse, and a crowd of photographers appeared. The scene was indeed more menacing than originally programmed—a mob of anti-mutant protesters jostled and shouted from all angles.

"Bobby, Kitty, John—excuse me,_ Pyro_, Arclight—you're up with me." Storm announced. The five of them sprang into a circle around her, and they started the long walk from the courthouse exit to the waiting car. Ororo called up a rainstorm, which diverted their pursuers, and all seemed well. Until one of the photographers threw a smoke bomb, and then it all went to pieces.

"At least Kitty caught her before she could fall on the ice." Jean observed. Below them, Ororo helped Ms. Engstrom to her feet, and she in turn helped Kitty, apologizing as she brushed the girl off.

"A good start," Xavier said, diplomatically, "but a better use of your powers, Bobby, would have been to encase the bomb in ice. Arclight, if you could tone down the strength of your shockwaves to the point where they simply cause a tumble, you'll have it. Pyro, nicely controlled, but the bomb did explode. Kitty, well done. Ororo, a wind gust would have taken care of the smoke. Next?"

The next team was the Toad, Rogue, Jubilee, Spyke, and Scott. This time the threat was a sniper on top of the building. He hit Grace in the shoulder, and although most of the team closed in to provide first aid, Toad broke formation and scaled the building to throw the 'sniper' to his death. "Keep in mind that Ms. Engstrom is your first priority, and that we do want the perpetrator in a condition where he can still answer questions." Erik said, and they went on.

Half an hour before the scheduled end of the session, it happened. In his effort to make the session more interesting, Erik had imported a Sentinel, which no one was expecting. As the team scrambled to respond, suddenly the enormous robotic simulacrum took a sharp right angle upward, and kept going…right into the ceiling. And through it. And through the four levels above it, through the roof, and up further still.

The damaged system shut the program down, and the walls went back to white.

"All right. Who did that, and how?" Professor Xavier looked down over the room.

Nobody replied.

"Anyone?" he prompted.

"It was not, technically speaking, thrown." Erik said. "Not by anyone there. It was the centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation." He pointed to his screen. "Someone cancelled out the gravitational pull on it."

"I don't know of anyone who can do that." Startled, the Professor turned to Jean.

Jean simply pointed a finger down at Ms. Engstrom.

The Professor took the microphone. "Ms. Engstrom, what did you do just now?"

"I'm not sure. It just felt like that jump when you get a sudden fright." She spread her hands helplessly.

"Very interesting." Erik murmured, looking at her brain scans on that screen. "It's not in the higher thought processes at all. That wave is right down in the limbic system. Pure instinct." He sounded gratified.

_He **would** be pleased with that. No doubt he would approve of her sending not only Sentinels, but anyone anti-mutant into orbit. And how do I train her to control it? _"I believe this session is over for today," Xavier said, looking up at the hole. "Class dismissed."


	44. Stryker

William Stryker stood outside his trailer and watched the sun die slowly, as it did every night, and he was unmoved. Pale gold, rose, and lilac melted into apricot, raspberry, and lavender, and those shades intensified into orange, red, and amethyst, eventually cooling into the silvered, spangled blue of dusk.

He was not the man he had been before: before he had to flee Alkali Lake, before Charles Xavier had spotted the tell-tale signs of abuse on Magneto—the pin-prick pupils of his eyes, the bruises, the disorientation—and called for an investigation.

Then of course Magneto had somehow gotten hold of some metal, and the next thing he knew, his carefully planned invasion of Xavier's school was a messy failure and the president went down and took Stryker with him.

It wasn't his fault. It was Xavier's fault. Xavier and Magneto's. Damn them. Mutants were only loyal to each other.

The mug of coffee in his hand likewise cooled, a film of milk congealing on its surface, while he stood there. He didn't care for his new living conditions; even if his trailer was top-of-the-line, it was a trailer, and the ghosts of his youth whispered 'Poor white trash' at him whenever he returned to it. His son now lived at the new laboratories, where attendants fed and bathed him and changed his diapers, which was good, as there was no way in hell his father was going to do that for him, and although Yumiko Oyama kept the trailer as neat and clean as a man could ask for, there was one thing she couldn't do, and that was cook right.

She was a Jap, and Jap cooking was all that she knew: clear broths with noodles and scraps of pork floating in it, rice, vegetables, and tofu. He had lost weight since he had to flee Alkali Lake; folds of deflated skin hung off him unappealingly. If this kept up, he would have to get it surgically removed, because sooner or later, it would get infected.

Behind him, his perfect deadly assassin said a single word, "Dinner," and he finally moved, pouring the stale coffee out into the Arizona dust before turning and going inside.

Tonight it was fried chicken—or her version of it. Chicken tempura. It was a shame she was a Jap and not a little ol' Negro gal who grew up with the kind of cooking his mouth watered for: red-eye gravy, pecan pie, and grits. But he just had to live with it. And her.

Not that he lived with her. Not in the Biblical sense. She slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, a little better than a dog, even though the dog would deserve it more than she did, mutant that she was. Sleeping with her would have been a hideous betrayal of the memory of his dead wife—and of his own fundamental humanity. Even if she did look and feel and smell enough like a real woman, it would be worse than bestiality.

He sat, and she served him. Then she took her own portion, and knelt on the floor. Sometimes, when she was due for another dose of his son's wonder drug, the fluids extracted from his spinal column, there was a look in her eyes which suggested that she didn't like being his unpaid drudge and not only scrubbing his toilet, but emptying the septic tank when it needed it, but wasn't serving men part of her culture? She should be used to it.

However unsatisfactory his living conditions were, his work was thriving. He had his third of the stock of Marine StarCare to draw on, providing funding for a laboratory and assistants—and the health-care corporation itself was useful for more than money. It provided data…

He was close to finding his blocker—the formula which would prevent the birth of another mutant to normal parents. So close…

In his studies of mutants, he had noticed something—there weren't any mutant families out there where both parents were mutants, and their children were mutants. God would not allow it; either the children were entirely normal or they were dead—at birth or shortly after. Congenital defects, chromosomal abnormalities. Stillbirths. When there were children, at any rate. Most mutant pairings were sterile.

Like mules, the product of a horse and a donkey. The chromosomes were too abnormal.

Now that he had those mutant mice from Worthington Laboratories to work with, he understood why: their gametes did not recognize one another. No conception occurred, or when it did, the mutants were too mutated to live, and the others were normal.

Except for that one female mouse, and her offspring…His mind shied away from that, because it troubled him. One female mouse, just as much a mutant as any other, had born only mutants, and they had all lived. More, their offspring were also all mutants, and they too, lived, breeding as normally as any other mice.

When he realized what that meant, he not only killed the entire genetic line, he incinerated them. Alive.

He hadn't known mice could scream, before that.

Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, because he dreamed that somewhere out there in the world was a mutant woman who was like that mother mouse, whose genes adapted to breed true and healthy mutants. He imagined her as a second Lilith, the mother of monsters, the first, perverted wife of Adam, who did not know her place. He dreamed of her pregnant with a doubly mutant child, her blood nourishing it, her lungs breathing life into it, and he woke.

It was nonsense, really. Nothing for him to be afraid of. One individual wouldn't, couldn't make that much of a difference. Mutantkind would die out once he had perfected his formula, and if she did exist, her children could be hunted down and exterminated as easily as mice.

He kicked Oyama. "This chicken tastes like crap." She said nothing, although her meal was now spread out all over the floor. With her healing powers, the bruise made by the toe of his shoe would fade within moments from her skin.

The bruise on her soul would last until he died, or until she did.

* * *

A/N: Hey, any ideas on how I can perk up my story summary, or is it perfect as it is? 


	45. Relating

A/N: Thank you, everyone. I altered the summary slightly--thanks for your input. Also thanks to my reviewers. Sometimes I have to let individual thanks slide while I write.

* * *

The fact was that while large holes did not get blown in the roof of Xavier's every day, it happened often enough that they knew how to deal with it, which they did.

Later that afternoon, while Grace (with the help of various students, including Rogue, Callisto, Bobby, and the Toad) got her attic ready to move into, Erik sought out his daughter. He found her in the rec room, watching a cooking show.

"Wanda? Do you have a moment?" He stood in the doorway, waiting for her reply.

"What is it?" She barely spared him a glance.

"Never mind. It's nothing that can't wait. I can tell you aren't in the mood to talk." _Oh, well. I tried._

"No. Wait. I'm sorry. Let me turn this off—." She turned off the television. "I—I'd like for us to talk, Father."

_This is a change_. He entered the room and said, "I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated the way in which you kept your word to me yesterday. Grace told me how you and she sat down over coffee and talked. To my mind, that showed a great deal of friendliness and as open a mind as I could hope for. That's all."

Wanda looked down. "She painted over some of the picture for you. Let's just say my mind was shut until she pried it open for me. I—Won't you sit down, Father? I wanted to ask you a question or two. If you have time, that is."

"There is nothing pressing that I need to attend to—and few things I should like better." He took a seat at an angle to the sofa she occupied.

"Ms. Engstrom is so different than Mystique that I—I was wondering—is she anything like Mother? You never talk about her, and—you're the only person alive who can."

_I don't want to do this. This will hurt._

_Like lancing an infected wound…_

"You see that maple tree out there, dressed in its autumn glory? If you were to take two seeds from it, and plant one in the most miserable, exhausted patch of earth you could find, where it would get no more water and sun than the bare minimum needed to keep it alive, and plant the other in the rich, dark soil of a garden, in full sun, where it would not only get rain, but there were caring gardeners to tend it, both of them would grow into maple trees. One would be smaller and weaker, more prone to diseases and parasites, while the other would be stronger and fuller, but they would be the same kind of tree.

"Chance set your mother down in a time and place as inhospitable to her as that parched earth would be to the first seed…"

* * *

While Erik was painstakingly repairing his relationship with his daughter, Hank McCoy was just entering the infirmary, where the Professor and Jean were poring over the results of the multiple brain-scans. 

"Have we learned anything as yet?" he asked.

"The short version is: She makes people feel better." Jean told him. "The professor can give you the longer one."

"Professor?"

"Ms. Engstrom's brain is sending out a signal to the minds of those around her. That signal stimulates the production of certain brain chemicals, namely serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Serotonin regulates mood, and the lack of it induces depression. Norepinephrine and dopamine affect the attention span and ability to focus. When there are higher concentrations of these neurotransmitters in the brain, an individual is happier and able to think more clearly."

"Being around her is like a dose of Prozac, Ritalin, and Adderall, all in one—only without the unpleasant side effects. The longer someone is around her, and the more attention she focuses on that person—the greater the effect. It isn't like something harmful, such as cocaine or Ecstacy—this is more like, oh—petting a friendly dog or a cat, watching a funny movie, or going for a walk in the park. It's a natural mood elevator." Jean explained.

"Does she know what she's doing?" Hank asked.

"No. This was very difficult to pinpoint. The signal is coming from the autonomous nervous system."

"That part of the brain which takes care of the most basic life functions, which tells the heart to beat, the lungs to breathe, waking or sleeping." Doctor McCoy murmured.

"Yes. This is hardwired into her system, even deeper than the display of anti-gravity power we saw earlier. It's no more under her control than Rogue's powers are under hers—and in fact, Rogue's powers center in the same portion of the brain." Xavier rubbed his forehead. "This is the second connection made between them. Although the voices seem to think Rogue might be able to control her powers, if they assist her."

"Both of them have mutations that center in a part of their brain that's primal. Something that's existed long before we were human. Life functions. Survival. Motherhood. Instinct. And these voices…There's something here I don't understand, some part of the picture I'm not seeing." Hank thought out loud.

"You and me and the professor, too." agreed Jean. "We've been disagreeing about whether to tell her—and whether to try and contain that signal. I believe she is stressed out enough as it is. Adding this to all her other concerns will only drive up her blood pressure. She's a forty-seven year old expectant mother, even if she does have a healing factor. Women as young as she is physically still lose their babies."

"But she is altering the emotions of others without their knowledge or consent." Charles Xavier was deeply troubled. "Ethically, I cannot—."

"Professor, " Jean interrupted. "I respect you beyond any other person alive, but when I consider how much psychiatric medication I hand out every morning to students here in this school, the side effects and the costs, and weigh that against your ethical dilemma—I'm sorry. This signal is non-intrusive. It isn't making them think thoughts that are not their own, or feel emotions that aren't theirs—all it's doing is correcting imbalances. And restoring normal brain function. Leave this be for now. You can always start containing the signal later."

"I must say I agree." Hank said. "Study this further. If nothing else, imagine how it will be if everyone suddenly stops getting along!"

"Very well." the Professor concluded. "For now, at least."


	46. Three Weeks Later

Three weeks later: (October 16, 2006)

"This is your heart." Jean held the instrument to Grace's chest. The steady rhythm of a healthy beat filled the infirmary.

"All right." Grace, who was lying back on the examining table, fully dressed except for her belly, lifted her head and looked at her friend.

Jean did not look as though she had been sleeping well lately, but she smiled as she moved the instrument down to Grace's abdomen. "And this is your digestive system." Sloshing and bubbling sounds replaced the heartbeat.

"It sounds disgusting, but normal." Grace commented.

"Perfectly normal. Now can you guess what this is?" Jean moved the instrument again.

This time, a tiny rapid sound came from the speakers, faster than the ticking of a watch. Grace thought of a hummingbird's wings, of snowflakes falling in a blanketing blizzard, of a kitten's loud purr, and she smiled wider, until her face ached. "It's the baby's heart beating."

"Right! And right on schedule. This is the best indication possible that your baby is developing normally. Congratulations; you are now officially out of Phase One—the first trimester, and into Phase Two, the second."

"Thank you. I knew things had changed when the morning sickness went away and my sense of smell became so acute. I could smell that there was a sour carton of milk at the back of the fridge this morning."

"That's not so unusual."

"From three floors away?"

"That _is_ unusual. Does it bother you?"

"I'm getting used to it. Actually, I find myself appreciating nuances of scent I never noticed before. Fresh water is beautiful. Clean linens have me standing there sniffing for five minutes." _And Erik smells utterly wonderful, even right before he showers. It's probably biology's way of saying that he's my mate._

_I can't believe I just thought that._

"Speaking of senses of smell, Logan is about to walk in that door. He's been exercising, so he's all sweaty, bare-chested, and gleaming." She pulled down her sweater.

"Grace!"

"Hey, I'm committed to someone. That doesn't mean I'm blind or dead. Besides, he's not doing that for _my_ benefit."

"I can't—." Right on cue, the door opened, and a man like a Greek god, only somewhat hairier, walked in, his damp t-shirt hanging from one hand and his torso steaming slightly. "Logan. Hello. What brings you to the infirmary?"

"Just giving you an update. The papers came through from the University of Michigan. Bobby has the green light to audit accounting, Pyro is taking journalism, and Arclight went for philosophy. Don't ask me why."

"She said somebody needed to be on hand to do all the heavy thinking." Grace said.

"She's welcome to it. Did you know that her name was actually Incarnacion Hernandez?"

"Yes. She told me she got tired of everyone calling her 'Ree'. Think about it for a moment."

"'Ree'? Oh, I get it. Reincarnation. So we're set to head out this afternoon, just in time for your lawyer to drop the first bombs." He paused, and waited.

"Was there something else?" Jean asked after a moment.

"Don't I get a goodbye kiss?" He stepped forward, until he was in Jean's personal space.

"You're not leaving for four more hours."

"You never know. Once you kiss me—."

"Tell him he should brush up on his Japanese while he's there." Grace's lion advised.

"I beg your pardon, but my little friend says you should audit Japanese while you're in the area." Grace sat up a bit awkwardly, unused to a rounder belly than she used to have.

"What?" He stepped back, the moment broken. _I swear that man sends out some sort of pheromone cloud that stuns most females_. "I already speak, read and write Japanese."

"That may be so, but according to him, you need a refresher course."

"I didn't know you spoke Japanese, Logan." Jean said.

"There's a lot about me you don't know…yet." He tried That Look again.

"Uh-uh." The lion shook his head. "Wrong one. Boy needs a girl, but not that girl."

"You're trying it on the wrong girl, he says." Grace held up the lion. "He says you need a girl, but Jean's the wrong one."

"Well, you tell him I—Now you've got me doing it. Has Cyke been bribing them?"

"No." Grace was enjoying the conversation. "I think your Ms. Right must speak or be Japanese—maybe both."

"Hey, your little pals might be able to make you dance when they pull your strings, but they can't make me."

"You want to bet? You might as well surrender to destiny, Logan. If there is anything I have learned, it is that struggling against the workings of the universe is useless. If it's destiny, there's a good reason for it."

"Yeah, well, they'll have to make me."

"I'm sure they will." Grace smiled at him.

He looked at her, and shook his head before leaving the infirmary. "Later."

Once the door was closed, Jean laughed, and said, "I shouldn't tell you this, but when he shook his head, he was thinking, 'Something's got to be wrong in a world where Magneto's getting more than I am.'"

"Ohhhh…" Grace laughed. "That's too good. But soon his troubles might be over. I don't mean his future Japanese speaking ladyfriend, I mean moving into my townhouse complex. All he would have to do is be seen without his shirt, and he'll be fending the neighbor women off with sticks. Seen without his shirt? Try being seen, period. It's like that show, Desperate Housewives, only they aren't quite so pretty and so thin. I have to ask Eleanor to keep me abreast of things. So to speak…"

"Okay, back to medical issues. Lay back and lift your hips. I want to measure your fundus."

Grace complied, asking, "Are you sure that's legal in New York? It was outlawed in Michigan five years ago."

"It was not! Your fundus is the height of your abdomen. Measuring it regularly is one of the best ways to be sure your baby is continuing to develop as he should."

"All right…"

Jean wrapped a tape measure around Grace's middle, and continued, "Since we live under the same roof, I know you're eating right, but are you drinking your calcium-fortified orange juice?"

"And my calcium-added skim milk. Until I burp. Jean? Are you all right? You look tired."

"I haven't been sleeping well lately, and when I do, I hurl things around telekinetically."

"That's a rough one—on you and on Scott. Erik broke a window with a cast-iron table last week during a nightmare. Scared me half to death."

"Good thing you have a wooden bed frame and not a metal one."

"Yes. I didn't realize what a good thing that was when I chose it. I only know every metal bed I ever slept in creaked to wake the dead whenever somebody rolled over. But can't you take something for it?"

"If I take sleeping pills, then Scott can't wake me when I'm throwing things. And my dreams are…full of things coming apart."

"Have you talked to the professor about it?"

"No. Not yet…"

* * *

Elsewhere: 

"Father? Are you awake?" Pietro couldn't knock on the door, as there was no door. It was a tent.

"Yes. I seem to have overslept."

"After last night, I thought you needed to sleep in."

"That was a kind thought, but through no fault of yours, not a good one. My air mattress must have a pinhole in it somewhere."

Erik had been speaking to a group of potential recruits in Northwestern Oregon the night before, and well into the night at that, around a campfire. It had gone well—until he went to bed. While his air mattress had been fully inflated the night before, his sleeping bag both comfortable and dry, the mattress had slowly deflated until Erik woke to find that several large, angular rocks were digging into his spine, and that the ground was very cold and very damp. He ached all over. _I am too old to live like this. I want to be at home, I want a hot bath, a hot meal, and a back rub, preferably by Grace. _

"Oh. Sorry. Here's coffee." His son handed him a thermos.

"Thank you." He poured a cupful, and drank. "How many do we have?"

"Six. A man who regenerates, a man who forms large spikes out of his own body and hurls them, a guy who's a finder, a girl who can read objects by touching them, a kid who sees and speaks to dead people, and a woman who can call and cast shadows."

"Good. We'll have to take them home for orientation and at least some kind of training. Today it begins. Angevin is serving the initial complaints before noon. What happened to the time? The last three weeks evaporated like a drop of water on a hot anvil."

"Don't ask me."

* * *

Stryker, too, had slept in. His sleep had been plagued for weeks with his image of the mutant Lilith. Her face, her hair, eluded him. All that he saw of her was the gesture of her hand protectively, lovingly cupping her pregnant and swollen belly, but that was enough. The night before, he had taken a sleeping pill and washed it down with bourbon. 

His sleep was dreamless, but he felt like hell upon waking.

When his car, driven by Oyama, arrived at the laboratories, his second, the chief scientist of the Blocker Project, was waiting for him outside.

"Something odd has happened," the woman said.

"Yes? What?"

"All the mice are…gone."

"Gone? Dead?" His stomach fell at that. That was a huge setback. "What, even the control group? They didn't get any of the formula."

"They're not dead. They escaped."

She led him inside, to the testing room. "The technician in charge swears he closed up as normal, and I believe him. The cameras show no one entered or left. See for yourself…"

He went up to the first bank of cages and squinted at them. "There's a hole melted in the wire."

"Yes."

"What did this?"

"I don't know. But Marta—." She gestured at one of the cleaners, a Mexican wet-back who worked for less than minimum wage, "says holes like this have been turning up all over the facility for weeks now. Usually in cabinets where people kept their snacks. She thought it was part of our project, so she didn't say anything."

"She thought—How could she be that stupid?"

"Her English is not good, but she is not stupid. You can't tell what did this, can you?"

"Show me one of these cabinets with a hole in it." he commanded.

The hole in question was small, and low down. It looked…about the right size for a mouse.

Mutant mice. That was impossible. The mice had the 'human' mutant gene spliced into theirs, that was necessary for the experiments, but their mutations were guaranteed not to involve any powers. They just looked odd, with extra tails, extra toes, sometimes a third eye…

But the mother mouse who gave birth to healthy mutants wasn't supposed to have been any different than any of the others, either.

He looked at the hole again. It had been made from the outside.

What if one or more of her offspring had been able to withstand the heat of the incinerator? If even one escaped… If that one had some kind of thermal power…

Now all the mice had escaped. Because they had been set free. Food would be the first priority. Then…what? A mate? Surely even a mutated mouse wouldn't have been capable of the kind of sophisticated thought processes that would lead it to free all of its kind.

Surely not…

Once upon a time, before Jason had shown his true colors, when he was still an innocent harmless little boy, his father had read to him. One of those books had been Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H.

"Get poison in here, and put it around." Stryker ordered, but he knew it was no use. Some of them would eat it and die, but some would prove immune. Others would have escaped out into the world.

And if, no, **_when_**, the descendants of the mother mouse bred with the newly freed mutant mice…

It was then that he knew that he would never, never rid the world of mutants. Neither the human kind nor the mice. They were too resilient, too adaptable. And they stuck together.

However, that was not going to stop him from trying.

* * *

A/N: Had to jump ahead, or this story (already long) would take forever... 


	47. This Is A Holdup

"By the way, do you have that menthol gel and heating pads on hand? Stuff you would use for a severe back-ache?" Grace asked Jean as she slipped off the table.

"Of course. Why? Are you feeling sore?"

"It's not for me. You see…Yesterday morning, before Erik left, the brass monkey told me to jab a needle into his air mattress. He's supposed to be back this evening." _Only one night apart since we've started living together, and I missed him terribly._ "I checked the weather in Oregon where he said he was going, and it rained last night. Even he doesn't know how old he really is, physically, but once somebody's out of their teens, sleeping on the ground just doesn't work any more."

Jean laughed. "Why did the monkey want Erik to wind up sleeping on the ground?"

"You think they'd tell me? It could be anything. I just hope he has some ibuprofen or something with him."

* * *

"No painkillers? Nothing at all?" Erik asked. 

"Nothing. I'm sorry, Father."

"That is…unfortunate. I'm chilled to the bone, and there is practically no part of me below the neck that does not hurt. There's a town nearby; I remember we flew over it. Toad, put us down somewhere discreet within walking distance of a shopping center. If I have to endure the trip all the way back to Xavier's feeling as I do now, I will wind up in a wheelchair as well."

"What are you going to do?" Pietro asked him.

"Go to a drugstore or a supermarket. Somewhere that sells painkillers and those air-activated adhesive heat patches."

The Toad obeyed. Rather than send someone else, Erik opted to go himself, as he would not have to wait as long. Pietro had offered, but he would have had to maintain a normal human pace for the errand (he was still unable to run), so no time would be saved.

Erik shook the doors of the pharmacy, only to discover they were locked. Glancing at the listing of store hours on the door, he was irritated to see that the store should have been open. Furthermore, he could quite clearly see someone moving around inside, and there was nothing whatsoever to indicate they were closed for inventory, or any other reason. _I will not be thwarted. I'll simply pop the lock and say it opened for me when I tried it._

A mere touch of his powers was all it took, and in he went.

Only to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun. He had walked in on a holdup.

"Down on the floor, old man. On your face! How the hell did you get in here, any way? I thought that door was locked." The gunman, a young man with red-rimmed eyes and sandy hair, glared at a middle-aged woman on the floor.

She cringed. "I did lock it. I swear it!"

"Never mind. On the floor, geezer. Now!" The gunman waggled his weapon.

"No." Erik said, disgusted. "I'm not getting down on that floor for you or anyone. I spent the night sleeping on the largest boulders in all of Oregon, and I _ache_. Lie down yourself." _I am not going to break cover over this scrap of offal, but I don't have to. Let him pull the trigger all he wants. It won't do him any good._

"What?" the robber gaped.

"Mister, you better do as he says. He killed a man at the bank across the street." quavered a teenage boy.

"So he says." Erik sneered. "I've seen real killers in my day. I doubt this one has the strength to pull the trigger."

"You have a death wish, old man? Cause I can help you out of this world, if you're so tired of it." said the stick-up artist, trying to regain control.

"Tired of the world, no. Tired of you? That took ten seconds. Go ahead. Show me you have the courage." He stepped forward, forcing the issue.

The gunman leveled his weapon at Erik's head, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. It didn't click. It didn't even move. "Aaah!" the man cried out, in surprise and rage, trying again and again.

"I thought as much." Erik taunted him, letting his contempt show on his face.

Throwing the gun at Erik's head (of course it missed him by several feet) the man turned and bolted for the doors.

Unfortunately, they slammed in his face, and the man rebounded off them with his forehead. _I couldn't let him get away. The police would hold me at least twice as long for questioning if they were looking for a suspect rather than taking one into custody. I shall have to hope no one saw. They are automatic doors, after all._

But a woman, perhaps a dozen years younger than Erik was looking at him with the light of realization in her eyes. As the other former hostages rushed about calling the police, she sidled closer to him, and said softly, "You're a mutant, aren't you?"

He closed his eyes. _No. Not now. I truly do not want to be taken into custody now. Those benches are uncomfortable at the best of times._

"It's all right. I won't tell anyone." She smiled, gently.

* * *

About forty-five minutes later, Erik was telling the police. "I teach at a private school in New York State. Yes, Michael Xavier, that's right." 

"Thank you, sir. I don't think we'll need you as a witness. We have your contact information just in case. Now." The policewoman who was taking his statement was ridiculously young, and as freckled as a plover's egg. She put on as stern and mature a face as she could, which made him smile inwardly. "What were you thinking when you decided to face him down? At your age, sir, surely you know how dangerous that was."

"I'm afraid I must have been in shock somewhat, officer. You see, my son and I—there he is now. Looking for me, I'm sure."

Pietro was at the door, looking around the pharmacy, suspiciously. "Father? Are you in trouble?"

"Not any more, Peter. It's all over. You see, I happened to walk in on a robbery in progress, but fortunately no one was hurt. Officer, this is my son Peter. He and I were camping in the forest here, and my air mattress sprang a leak last night. I woke up stiff and sore, which was why I came here to begin with. When that miscreant told me to lie down on my face, all I could think of was how much it would hurt."

"Well, in the future, try not to be so much of a hero." she admonished him.

"Excellent advice, officer. Thank you. Regrettably, I still don't have the self-heating adhesive pads or the analgesics I came here for."

The cashier raised a finger. "Just a moment." She scurried down an aisle, and came back with a bag full of the items. "On the house."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly. Here's fifty dollars. I trust that will also cover the price of a bottle of water from your cooler there…"

"So what happened, really?" Pietro asked, as they walked away.

Erik swallowed two of the ibuprofen with a swig of water, looked at the 'Use as directed' label, and took two more. "Exactly what I said. I walked in on a hold-up. Mind you, I did unlock the door to get in, and neither I nor anyone else there was in any danger once I walked in."

"And you didn't take the place apart?" Pietro gaped.

"I didn't want to break cover."

A car pulled up beside him—it was the woman who had spotted that he was a mutant. She leaned over, and said through the open window, "_Thank_ you."

"Ma'am, it was nothing. Thank you."

The light changed, and she drove away.

Magneto looked after her car and shook his head. "Look at that. New York license plates. I knew it. This entire incident had the fingerprints of Grace's little friends all over it. There is no such thing as coincidence or chance when one is involved with Grace Engstrom to any degree whatsoever. I wonder whether she'll turn up on the jury, or whether she's a federal court justice?"

"I've been meaning to ask you why you trust and believe in her and her voices so implicitly." Pietro looked at him searchingly.

"Have you ever examined one of her pieces closely? Many of them are completely reversible. All of them are finished as well on the inside as on the outside. That bespeaks a certain care and integrity which cannot be faked. I suppose it's possible someone could be that scrupulous in their work and duplicitous in every other way, but I doubt it. As for her voices…

"I suppose it's because they're not only accurate and effective, they're unpretentious. If she had said it was saints, angels or God speaking to her, I would think she was either delusional or being deluded. Neither does she puff herself up in importance because they chose her to speak to. In fact, she's embarrassed by it. These voices are so odd and ridiculous they inspire confidence."

"If you say so…How did you ever meet her in the first place?"

_It is a very good thing Grace and I discussed the need for a coherent story about how we met, and agreed beforehand._ "It was some time ago, in Australia…"


	48. From Alice Springs to Sydney

"We were on the same flight from Alice Springs to Sydney, and she had the seat next to mine." They turned off down a residential street, heading for the wooded area where Toad and the new recruits were waiting.

"What were you doing in Australia?" Pietro asked.

"Pyro's paternal grandmother had passed away. He was born in Australia, and he was her next of kin. As he was under eighteen, an adult had to have power of attorney to settle matters with the estate, and he entrusted it to me. He had only met her twice in his life, so he felt no pressing need to go along." That was true, and it had happened four months before he met Grace.

"Naturally it did not escape my attention that someone extraordinarily good-looking was sitting next to me. However, she was quite involved in looking over some yarn sample cards, and I wasn't about to intrude. Much to my surprise, she turned to me and said, 'Excuse me, but can you see any difference between these two shades?', holding out two strands so I could see them."

"I said, 'If there is any, I can't see it.'

"She replied. 'That's what I thought. Thank you. I hope I didn't bother you.'

"'Not at all,' I said in turn. 'Are you planning to make something?'

"Yes,' she answered. 'A business deal.' The ice having been broken, we talked all the rest of the way to Sydney. By the time we got there, I knew her opinion of every yarn fiber from acrylic to yak—and I was thoroughly entertained the entire time. Not everyone can make worsted-weight yarn an amusing topic of conversation, but she managed it." He had indeed had such a conversation with her, and much to his surprise, she had him in stitches—so to speak.

"What did you talk to her about?" They turned off the street and headed up a little hill.

"I told her I was a retired metallurgist. We were transferring to different flights back to the U.S. when we reached Sydney, but there were several hours of layover involved. So I asked her if she would join me for dinner. She accepted." The ibuprofen were beginning to work; he could feel it.

"But you didn't tell her who you were." Pietro stated.

"I did consider it, but 'By the way, I'm Magneto. You may have heard of me.', did not seem to me to be an effective pick-up line. After dinner, we went to our separate gates to wait—but not before exchanging contact information.

"Over the next few months, we kept in contact. I…found that I liked her. I liked that there was someone who never thought of me as Magneto. I thought about her often. When she said, during the course of one phone call, that she was going back to Australia, and she was sorry she couldn't run into me again, I told her I was free that week, if she didn't want to face Australia alone."

"What, just like that?"

"May I remind you that you married Crystal on rather less acquaintance? Yes, just like that. We're both consenting adults; why not? We took separate flights, both coming and going; we stayed in the same hotel, but we had separate rooms. All very discreet of us… It was meant to be—I suppose you would call it a 'fling'. It was never supposed to lead to anything more."

"When was this?"

"The middle of July. She turned forty-seven; we celebrated together."

"And her baby is due in April. I can do the math, you know."

"I know. At any rate, by the end of the week, we parted badly. She knew I was keeping something from her, something important. I was. I didn't want her to know I was Magneto, but in concealing that, I'm afraid I gave her the impression I was married.

"She was upset at the thought that she was the 'other woman', and I—I did not correct that impression. I could not imagine how she would fit into my life, but once we were parted, I found she was never far from my mind. I missed her. I missed her very much." It was the truth. "We did not have any contact between then and the day after her house was vandalized, nearly ten weeks later."

"When you went to her rescue, only to find the X-Men had gotten there first."

"Exactly so. You know what happened from there. I have a question for you, now. Why, when I cohabitated with Mystique for nearly twenty years, should there be such outrage at my new relationship?"

"You really want to know?" There was a spark of—could it be?—humor in Pietro's eye.

"Yes."

"Okay. You brought it up…It was never possible to imagine that any man who knew what Mystique was really like—not just how she looked, but what her power was, and the sort of person she was—that any man could get and sustain an erection around her. Let alone do anything with it. She gave off the vibe that she'd happily sprout teeth down _there_ at any moment."

_The danger was part of the attraction, but I daren't say that to him_. "Implying that Grace seems more approachable?"

"Uh-huh. A lot more." And then they were there.

* * *

In the midst of the chaos at Stryker's laboratories, as he watched them spread the poisoned bait around, he received a phone call from the president of Marine Star Care's board of directors. "I've called an emergency meeting of the Board for eight tonight. You had best be there."

"What? Why? Can't it be rescheduled?"

"No. It can't. Your secret genetic database isn't a secret any more. We've received a letter from an attorney representing a woman who is claiming her rights have been violated—and we do not have a snowball's chance in hell of defending ourselves, as you ought to know. If you do not show up this evening, I will have exactly no compunction against selling you down the river. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Stryker?"

"Abundantly. How was it leaked?"

"If you want to find out, you'll have to show up." Click. Stryker looked at the phone, and hung it up with such force he cracked the receiver.

"Get us tickets to New York. Tonight. I want to be there no later than seven, their time."

Somebody was going to pay for this…

He made it there on time, but only just, thanks to the traffic. Due to his sudden and drastic weight loss, his business suits fit so poorly that he was forced to buy one off the rack in a department store, and wear it without alterations. It fit better than his old suits, but the fabric looked cheap, shoddy. It put him at a disadvantage, and he knew it. That Oyama looked as sleek and professional in her clothing as he did rumpled and seedy annoyed him further.

Nodding at her to open the boardroom door, he stopped in the doorway, startled by the blow-up of the woman's face on the large screen behind the president's chair. _God was in a good mood the day He made that one_, he thought. The look the camera had captured suggested that she liked men and that men liked her, and that she knew it.

"Come in, Mr. Stryker." The president suggested. "Would you be so kind as to close the door behind you? Thank you. You will have noticed the photograph on the screen behind me. That is Grace Engstrom. Take a seat."

The only seat left empty was on the far side of the table, near the front of the room, meaning he had to walk all the way there with the combined weight of their stares on him—a psychological tactic, to put him off. He ignored it, or tried to.

"Now," he said with false heartiness upon reaching his seat. "What seems to be the problem?"

"I hardly know where to begin, Mr. Stryker. Grace Engstrom, who you see up there on the screen, has been a Marine StarCare client for over twenty-two years, predating your investment with us by some time. She was a good client, paying in full and never requiring expensive hospitalization time. Several months ago, she came in for her annual 'Well Woman' check-up. She was sold on the advantage of genetic testing for the breast cancer genes, and submitted both her check for two hundred dollars and a sample.

"As per your program, your _illegal_ program, she was screened not only for the breast cancer genes, but for all other known genetic markers. At this point, I believe I'll let Moynihan, who's Chief of Data, take over."

Moynihan, a short, red-faced man with peppery hair and moustache, stood. "For the last twelve years, Marine StarCare's policy has been to hire temps for all data entry and data processing positions." he quavered. "Before we would have to start providing benefits, we fire them. While in some ways this is cost-effective, there's a trade-off.

"The disadvantage is that all our data people are barely qualified and ignorant of company procedure, and as soon as they become competent and knowledgeable, they get fired. One of our newest temps made an error on his first day out of training. Instead of just entering the genetic work-ups into your database, he uploaded them to our clients' personal files. Then he entered the summary as well. All told, one hundred and seventy-two genetic work-ups were mistakenly made public—and each file received the shorter summary document as well, with the full names, the ID numbers, and their Marine StarCare center locations as well. Ms. Engstrom was one of the hundred and seventy-two."

"Thank you, Moynihan. You may sit down. That was the error which put that information into the hands of Dr. Alexander Bertram, who for almost eighteen years was Grace Engstrom's primary care physician. Dr. Bertram is, or was, a member of the Association for Genetic Purity."

Stryker winced. The AGP were a right-thinking organization, but they were clumsy.

"This would not matter, except that Grace Engstrom tested positive for the mutant gene."

"Is that what this is all about? One mutant who got herself outed, and is crying her eyes out?"

"No, Mr. Stryker. That is not what this is all about. First of all, mutants have the same right to genetic privacy as anyone else. The Supreme Court decided that four years ago.

"Dr. Bertram made matters worse. He'd never seen a real live mutant in his life before, and he got so excited he nearly messed his pants. When she returned for a check-up last month, he bungled it. He didn't inform her of her rights; he drew blood for a second test without her informed consent, and then he threw her out, or the next best thing to it."

"Can you blame him?" Stryker joked.

"Yes, Mr. Stryker, I can. Just as I blame you. You convinced us that your database was necessary and desirable.

"Dr. Bertram then called the local Mutant Registration Board. Precisely how, we don't know, but the AGP got wind of it, and when Grace Engstrom got home, her house had been vandalized. She was assaulted in her living room with the intent to kill."

"That mess in Michigan." Stryker said, remembering.

"Yes. That mess in Michigan. Now, this woman isn't like most mutants. All she has, as far as the work-up shows, is a minor healing factor. She's forty-seven years old, a law-abiding tax payer who has never even been arrested. She volunteers her time with the Girl Scouts and other youth organizations, to teach them knitting and crochet. She supports charities and attends fund-raisers. She is, in fact, a model citizen.

"Now she wants reparation for the damage done to her, to her house, her financial future, and her reputation. Do you want to know who our co-defendant is in this matter, Mr. Stryker?"

"I can see that you want to tell me."

"She's challenging the Mutant Registration Act on the grounds that it's unconstitutional. She wants anti-discrimination laws for mutants. And thanks to you and your secret, private and illegal genetic database, Mr. Stryker, she might just get them. Tell me how you're going to get us out of this disaster, because I'm just dying to find out."


	49. Placating the Board

"You haven't given me enough information to work with. What kind of lawyer does she have? Ambulance chaser, shyster, snake oil salesman?" Stryker kept his tone light, almost amused. It didn't do to let them see they had you over a barrel.

The head of Marine StarCare's legal department stirred. "His name is Robert Angevin. Do you remember the Sleep-EZ motel chain?"

"Yes. They went out of business ten years ago, give or take a few."

"Angevin's first case out of law school was 'Diaz vs. Sleep-EZ.' The Diaz family had just been evicted, and they were on welfare when they checked in for the night. Mrs. Diaz requested a crib for their three-month-old baby. The crib she got had been recalled by the manufacturer for safety reasons, and it was visibly worn. She complained, but the manager told her 'Tough'. It collapsed during the night and suffocated their infant.

"The opposing attorneys had more than seventy years experience among them, and Angevin was a lone greenhorn. The first jury awarded the Diaz family seventeen million. Sleep-EZ appealed. The second jury awarded them one hundred and sixty-four million. That is why Sleep-EZ went out of business. The Diaz's now live in a very nice house in Santa Barbara, and they named their next child 'Roberto Angevin Diaz'. As I said before, that was his first case. He's gotten better since then."

"Then he must be counting on an out-of-court settlement—that's the only way there'll be any money in it. Everybody has a price," Stryker said, feeling more confident. "We'll find out what they're willing to settle for. Once they've accepted our offer, the federal court will toss her case right out the door."

"What if she won't settle for money?" The Board president folded his hands.

"Up the ante. Offer money and something else: a free retest at the Marine StarCare facility of her choice. We make sure the test comes up negative. So the original laboratory made a mistake. She's not a mutant after all. I still have friends. I'll see to it her name is erased from the Registration List. We apologize to her publicly, and fire the whole laboratory staff and the doctor, in exchange for her silence about the database." It stuck in his craw, but he was prepared to do it.

"But she'll still be a mutant." objected another board member.

"What of it?" Stryker replied. "If what you say is true, the reason she's dangerous is that she isn't dangerous. We can afford to let _this_ mutant slip through the cracks for the greater good. She'll be scared to go anywhere near another genetic screening, and I'll make sure her name is flagged in the Registry computers."

"There is a complication." The only female board member spoke up. "She's pregnant. If her child is a mutant, especially if it's obviously a mutant, she might prefer to go to court."

"Pregnant?" There was no particular reason for that fact to send an icy hand directly down his spine to shrivel his balls. After all, even mutant women had normal babies. There was no reason to suppose the father of her child was a mutant, let alone that she was the Lilith he so feared—but it was too much of a coincidence for him. "Does she have a family already?"

"No. This is her first pregnancy." the woman replied.

"Forty-seven and pregnant for the first time. Grace Engstrom has something to lose, if it comes to playing hardball. That makes her vulnerable. Nobody is bulletproof."

"I see it differently. Grace Engstrom is forty-seven and pregnant for the first time. That gives her something to fight for." The woman looked at him sideways.

"When you say 'hardball', Mr. Stryker, exactly how hard do you mean? For the record." The president's eyes were as warm and friendly as a moray eel's.

"Only that which is legal and ethical, of course. We have to remember who's in the right here." replied Stryker, while underneath he thought: _Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes._

"If we do go to court with this, Mr. Stryker, what then? How are we to defend ourselves against the violation of the Genetic Privacy laws?"

"Should it go to court, we won't have to worry. As long as the Government is involved, the Mutant Registration Act at stake, the burden of proof is on her. After all, she won't just have to win in court, she'll have to conquer popular opinion, too. All right. Maybe she is harmless—but there are so many other mutants out there who aren't. She'll have to convince the entire population of the United States that because the laws are unfair in her case, they're unfair to every mutant. Far better that one innocent mutant should suffer than that hundreds of human beings should, after all. The jury will see that our way—if it comes to it. The American people will see that. She'll never be able to change that. Never.

"First things first, however, lady and gentlemen. We do this properly and offer a cash settlement. Let's see if we can't have an offer in front of her lawyer by Friday. What's a good lowball figure? Five hundred thousand?"

"Too low." disagreed the attorney. "Angevin wouldn't wipe his nose with that. Try five million as an opener."

The board didn't know where she was living, or who her friends and defenders were. They didn't even know that little Hugo Angevin, who was even with his mother for first place in the race for 'People Most Important to Robert Angevin In The Entire World.', was a mutant.

Had they known, they would never have adjourned the meeting with such confidence.

Never.

All the way over on the other side of the country, on the island of Alcatraz, Warren Worthington the Second looked down at the mouse whose extra tails and claws had just disappeared after an injection of serum, and smiled. Soon, he would have his son back as he always should have been. Soon…

* * *

A/N: Should have mentioned this last time. Many of my faithful readers (thankyouthankyouthankyou!) have wondered what is up with Jean's insomnia and nightmares. The Phoenix will arise soon--which given how I write, might be a dozen chapters from now, but there will be foreshadowing to lead up to it. 


	50. A Barbeque Party at Angevin's

Four days later: October 20, 2006, 3:00 PM

The dragon on Rogue's shirt coiled all the way around her body to look at Grace and hiss, "Dessstroy the firebird. Desstroy her!" This baffling and unwelcome instruction came as Jean, Rogue and Grace were going up the steps into the New York headquarters, which, coincidentally, were also the adjoining brownstones on West 57th St where Robert Angevin lived and had his law offices.

The attorney had pointed out to Erik that since part of the reason the mutants needed a base in the city was to provide his family protection, it would make sense to have them on the premises. The pair of brownstones, part of his wife's late father's estate, were five stories tall and had plenty of bedrooms. All the mutants needed were appropriate reasons to say they were there. This also solved a lot of problems such as scheduling and meals.

Angevin had decided to throw a hiring party to welcome his new 'staff', including his current and more regular employees, Grace and some others from the school, plus selected friends and neighbors. As the weather had taken an upward turn and become warm once more, his wife Ella decreed it should be a barbecue party in the conjoined backyard.

Grace shifted the container of cookies to her other hand. Pausing on the steps, she looked up and down the street, looking for a Pontiac. As her eldest brother's first car had been a 1969 Pontiac Firebird, that was what sprang to her mind first. _ All right; where is the car, and why on earth do they want me to destroy it? Am I really the best person for the job? Surely Colossus or Erik would be more efficient at getting rid of it. _

However, there was no muscle car in sight. _Stravinsky's Firebird, maybe? If they want me to smash a music CD…? _

"Desstroy the firebird. Desstroy her!" the dragon repeated.

"Grace? Are you okay?" Rogue turned. The dragon hastily scampered back to the front of her tee.

"Perfectly. The dragon on your shirt…" _Come to think of it, back when they told me to let her tag along, the lion said, 'You're going to need her to deal with the firebird._ "What does the word 'firebird' mean to you, Rogue?"

"Firebird…? Harry Potter. Fawkes." was the girl's prompt reply.

"What does that have to do with—Oh. Dumbledore's pet phoenix. All right. That's it. I'm officially confused." _I wish they'd be clearer about things, but no. That would be too easy for me, wouldn't it._

"I think Phoenix, Arizona, myself." Jean said. She reached out and rang the bell.

Ororo answered it. "Fantastic! Come in and see the place." The townhouse was well over a century old, an iconic example of the classic New York brownstone—a marble-floored hallway led toward the back of the house.

"It's lovely." Grace said, looking around. Jean and Rogue also admired it.

"Where have they put you, Kurt, and Quill?" Jean asked.

"I'm up on the fifth floor, in a suite off the greenhouses." Ostensibly, Ororo was the Angevins' new orchid gardener—orchids having been the late Hugo di Uzzano's hobby. He had an enormous greenhouse on top of the structure, and had devoted a great deal of time and money to caring for and breeding the rarest and most beautiful examples of those exotic flowers. "Kurt is on the second floor, with the family. Quill is on the third floor. Come on out to the garden."

"Sorry—but where's the powder room?" Grace asked. One symptom of pregnancy she had, and disliked, was increased frequency of urination—as her womb expanded, it put pressure on her bladder.

"Right in there…"

The little bathroom had a beautiful Japanese scroll on the wall, a pen-and-ink drawing of a joyous horse. Grace eyed it suspiciously as she sat down, and sure enough, it said, "Destroy the firebird. Destroy her!"

"I hate it when you talk to me at times like this. It's just a very bad moment for you to intrude. No doubt you know exactly what I'm doing at all times anyway, but I'd at least like the_ illusion_ of privacy."

"Destroy the firebird. Destroy!"

"Maybe I could if you'd give me a few more clues! Ever think of that?"

"It was never meant to be a person." the horse added, compounding Grace's confusion. "It will burn her out."

"Who? Who's getting burned?" The horse went back to being ink on paper once more. "Can you at least give me some idea of what progress Rogue is making, since I need her to deal with it? Is she even close to listening yet?"

The horse refused to say. "Fine." Grace flushed the toilet and washed her hands. Looking in the mirror, she touched her hair, examining it critically_. Great. The grey really shows in this light. What am I supposed to do about it? Somebody said coloring one's hair while pregnant or nursing is bad for the baby, but I wouldn't be drinking or eating the stuff. It goes on my head, after all, so how bad can it be?…I need a trim, too._

"Grace? I'm gonna go ahead." It was Rogue_. I've barely had privacy in which to pee for a month now, even without my little friends. All this familial togetherness is starting to get on my nerves._

"I'll just be a second." She found her way to the backyard by herself.

The combined yards were, for New York City, where the value of a square foot of land could be tens of thousands of dollars, enormous. There was a tiled patio, a few trees, a fountain, and even a few flower beds. At the moment, there were also a lot of people.

"Grace, hello!" Over by the grill, Angevin raised a hand with a hot mitt covering it. "Make yourself at home. This is my wife, Ella."

The woman Grace remembered from his cell phone photo raised a wine glass. "Ms. Engstrom. I'm very glad to meet you. Welcome to our home."

Ella di Uzzano-Angevin had carroty-red hair and brown eyes. She was also horse-faced—long nose, long jaw, somewhat prominent teeth—but undeniably attractive. "Thank you, but please, call me Grace."

"Grace it shall be. And I'm Ella. This is grape juice." She handed over a glass identical to her own. "Oh, you didn't have to bring anything? What is it?"

"Chocolate chip cookies—the universal food_." And one of the few things I can make with confidence._ Grace had never been a very good cook—food, unlike yarn, did things on its own when she took her eyes off it—it boiled over, or burned, it went sour or curdled or moldy in extreme cases, and then it wasn't food anymore, and nothing could be done to turn it into food again. A knitting project gone awry, on the other hand, could be unraveled and turned into something else, months or years later. Food was untrustworthy.

"My weakness. The food table's over there. Let me introduce you around; Robert has to watch the steaks and the salmon."

In rapid succession, she met the law office staff—a private investigator, an accountant, a second attorney, and a legal secretary—, four or five friends of the Angevins, and two of Ella's cousins. Finally, Ella led her to a patch of grass where Kurt Wagner was playing ball with Hugo Angevin, the light of his parents' eyes.

"And this is Hugo." Heedless of her immaculate clothing, Ella swept the boy up into her arms, where he clung around her neck. He had bits of dried grass all over his clothing, a pair of corduroys and a sweatshirt with a puppy on it. "Are you having fun, lovey?" she asked him.

"Teddy!" he chortled, pointing at Kurt.

"It is my fur." The German-born mutant explained, standing up. "He seems to think I am the biggest stuffed toy ever. And while I think he may be having fun, I know I am."

"You are going to be a great help around here. I'm learning that you need at least two adults per small child on hand at all times—and that doesn't mean you can practice law and medicine while you're on hand." she told Grace. "Kurt is going to make a great nanny—and a great father when the time comes."

"Oh, that is not very likely. Where would I find a lady as lovely or charming as either of you? You are already both spoken for."

"Boy needs a girl." said Grace's panther, from around her neck. "Make me a match."

_Oh, no. Surely he doesn't mean…_

"Kurt and Wanda, sitting in a tree, K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love. Then comes marriage…" sang the puppy on Hugo's shirt.

_Oh, no…_

In the meantime, Stryker pulled up in a car with Marine StarCare's chief attorney. Oyama drove it, her eyes as impassive as ever. "Ready?" he asked the lawyer. They had no appointment, but the small size of Angevin's firm made it impossible for him to have more than one case on at the same time. Grace Engstrom's attorney was not very likely to turn away the head of the HMO's legal department.

"Yes. And wired for sound. You'll hear everything." Picking up his attaché case, the man left the car.

Stryker turned on the receiver, and listened to the lawyer's faint breathing as he crossed the street, went up the steps, and rang the bell.

"Yes? How can I help you?" Stryker could see the face of the person who had answered the door—a young man, quite evidently Asian.

"I'm Archibald Lewes. I represent Marine StarCare. I'd like to see Mr. Angevin, please."

"One moment. I'll see if he's available."

A few minutes later, the man himself came to the door. He had on a barbecue apron with the words 'I'm sure I didn't invite all these people.' emblazoned on it. Stryker was disappointed in his unprepossessing appearance—he was none too tall, and he looked like a kid. You'd think his momma's milk was still wet on his lips.

"Hello, Mr. Lewes. Won't you step in? Thanks, Quill." The door closed behind Lewes.

"I can't leave the grill for too long. I hope you don't mind." chatted the younger attorney.

"Not at all. Thank you for seeing me without notice. I'm sorry—have I interrupted a party?"

"If you join in, you won't have interrupted it at all. It's a welcome party for new staff. We've taken on several at once."

"As delightful as that would be, I'm afraid I'm here on business. I've come to put a settlement offer on the table." Stryker could hear the sounds of people socializing nearby—the clink of glasses, laughter, talking.

"Really? Then you're in luck. Ms. Engstrom is here right now. You won't have to wait for Monday to get an answer. Here's the garden. Hey, everyone!" Angevin raised his voice. "This is Mr. Archibald Lewes. He's head of Marine StarCare's legal."

The socialization suddenly stopped. "I—er." said Lewes.

"It's all right. We're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next several months. Shouldn't we at least know each other by sight?" Angevin sounded normal, reasonable, and cheerful; like a new neighbor, or a co-worker. "Here, let me introduce you to some of them. Ororo, this is Mr. Lewes. Ororo Munro is one of our new staffers. She's the new curator of the Hugo di Uzzano orchid collection. He left it to the American Orchid Society, on the condition it be kept here. This is J. Howard Norfolk. He keeps the books for us. Next is Quill, who got the door for you—he's interning here while he decides whether pre-law is right for him…"

Ororo Munro! The shock Stryker experienced at hearing that name was repeated, over and over, as Angevin introduced name after name which Stryker knew, and knew well. Jean Grey. Rogue. Grace Engstrom herself. And finally…

"This is Kurt Wagner, who's going to try and cope with that little chap by his feet there. I know Mr. Wagner is an unusual choice for a nanny, being a guy and all, but they get along great and we're going to try to come up with a better term for the position."

"I favor 'childhood socialization professional' myself." said the former circus performer.

_How dare he? How…? I own that animal. And how can Angevin? What can those mutants have done to him?_

"But—but he's--." spluttered Lewes.

"What?" Angevin asked, deadpan, as if he really couldn't see the freakishness of the creature he had 'hired' to look after his son. "A Roman Catholic? I'm surprised at you, Mr. Lewes. Grace, if you have a moment—Hey, William. Can you watch the grill?"

Hearing his own first name made Stryker jump. "Sure thing, Robert." came a mid-Western twang.

"He's a mutant!" hissed Lewes, as the reverberation of the footsteps told Stryker they had gone back inside.

"Yes. I know. So is my client."

"So were at least five other people you just met out there." Grace Engstrom had a deeper than average voice for a woman, with something both cool and husky about it—a voice that fit her face. _Delilah. Jezebel. Lilith!_

"But—."

"He comes well-recommended, he's great with children, his moral character is excellent, and we like him. Most importantly, so does my son. Added to that, he has certification in CPR, and Dr. Grey's made sure he knows first aid. This is my office. The red chair is the most comfortable, Grace. Mr. Lewes, the yellow will be most convenient for you."

Once they were seated, he heard Lewes open his briefcase. "Marine StarCare regrets what has occurred—which is in no way an admission of guilt or responsibility. However, realizing that you feel you have been mistreated, we would like to make a good-will offering of five million dollars, on the condition that you disclose nothing of what occurred, and nothing which might have been in your medical file, Ms. Engstrom."

She did not hesitate. "I'm sorry you should have wasted your time coming here, Mr. Lewes, because I don't want to settle out of court. Mr. Angevin sent that letter as a mere formality. That's all I have to say. If you'll excuse me…?" She left the room.

"Is this upon your advice?" Lewes demanded of Angevin.

"It's with my full and complete support. I don't want to settle out of court either. I intend to push this one all the way." The affability was gone from Angevin's voice. "To what purpose has Marine StarCare been assembling its genetic database, Mr. Lewes?"

"I'm afraid I cannot answer that question. You're a traitor, you know. _Why_ are you doing this, Mr. Angevin, if not for money?" Lewes sounded like Stryker felt.

"Why? You met the reason."

"The mutants here?"

"Yes. One of them in particular. My son. I suppose you and others like you will be trotting back and forth for a while, making more offers, but as Ms. Engstrom said, you'll be wasting your time. If any anti-mutant groups mount an attack of some kind –Molotov cocktails through the windows, home invasions—I'm sure you've realized by now that the mutants who are currently in my home are more than merely employees of a mundane variety, and we also subscribe to a private security company with an excellent reputation and equally good equipment.

"For example, they've text-messaged me to tell me they're keeping an eye on the two persons who came here in the car with you and are now watching this house from across the street. I tell you this not to boast, but to inform you that we expect things to get very ugly before they're done, and are preparing for it."

"Are you implying that Marine StarCare would—."

"Not at all. But I'm sure someone will."

Stryker had heard enough. He turned off the receiver and pulled out his phone. "Stryker here. I want someone here to follow the Engstrom woman and whoever leaves with her. Get planes ready. She's in with Xavier's people, and that means they've probably come by jet. If we can pick her off now, we're going to."

Next: Rogue learns to listen, the Phoenix manifests herself, and Grace figures out how to use that anti-gravity power of hers the hard way…


	51. Terminal Velocity

Later that night:

_The problem is, I just don't see Kurt and Wanda together. What are my little friends thinking? It's like…he's D'artagnan of The Three Musketeers, and she's Catherine of Wuthering Heights. I could see Catherine with Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, maybe, all passionate revenge and brooding, but not D'artagnan. _

Grace stretched back in her seat on the X-Men's Blackbird, and slipped her shoes off. Jean was flying the jet; she and Rogue were chatting about the party up in the cockpit.

Grace didn't do much pleasure reading, because she couldn't knit and read at the same time, but she did a great deal of pleasure listening—books on tape, radio shows from the era of old-time radio, and fully dramatized plays. Her MP3 player got a lot of use that way.

_This is an interesting train of thought. Who are Erik and I, then? An older version of Benedict and Beatrice, from Much Ado About Nothing, too wise to woo peaceably, and so witty we're always trying to match each other. Unless he's Richard the Third, and I'm Lady Anne, the user and the used, only I don't know it yet…_

"Put your shoes back on", advised the panther. She did so, absently.

_Of course, my little freinds could be having fun with me—hoping I'll bust my butt trying to get the two of them together, and laughing at my attempts. That would be just like them. I sometimes feel like they're the cue stick, and I'm the white cue ball. They may aim me at the eight-ball, but their **real** goal is to sink the four, the three and the seven in the fanciest hustler move ever…_

"Put your purse around your neck. Now!" commanded her feline friend in a crisp, British army commander voice.

"What?"

"Do it now!" As she did so, she heard an alarm shrill from the cockpit, and an officious voice ask who they were.

"Jean? What's wrong?"

"There's one—no, two unfriendlies. Strap yourself in! You too, Rogue."

"Don't do it!" snapped the panther.

Up in the cockpit, Jean snarled into the radio at the other planes, as Rogue cried out, "Jean—what's wrong?"

"I think they're about to fire on us!"

"No, Ah mean what's wrong with you?" Grace craned her neck forward. It was as if smoke had billowed forth to fill the cockpit, heavy, oily smoke, or perhaps a cloud of seething insects, centered upon Jean. "Your eyes…!"

"Destroy the firebird!" urged the panther.

"What am Ah supposed to do?" Grace may have thought it, but Rogue said it aloud. "What am Ah—what do you mean, pull it off her? Grace, my dragon, he just told me to pull it off her, but what—?"

"Strap in!" Jean commanded, and took the plane into a loop. Centrifugal force alone kept Grace in her seat.

"Ah don't understand!" Rogue wailed. "Ah don't!"

An energy of some sort crackled around Jean, and her hair stood out around her, as if blown by a wind that touched no other. The plane lurched, and the voices from the radio became more strident. Jean's head jerked to the side—Grace turned her own head to track where Jean was looking, and saw a fighter plane, and the person in it, come apart like a flock of ravens dispersing in all directions.

"Jean!" She and Rogue screamed it simultaneously. The only effect this had was to redirect her attention toward them.

"Don't Bother. Me." grated their friend. Her eyes no longer belonged to anything remotely human.

An explosion rocked the plane as a missile from the second fighter hit, and blew a hole in it. The pressurized air of the cabin rushed out into the thinner atmosphere, and a second missile shot out from their foe's plane. Grace felt the same mental start as she had in the danger room, and both the enemy jet and the missile sprang away as the sentinel had.

_Oh, God. Did I just kill that pilot?_

_Am I about to die? My baby! I'll never even hold him!_

_Erik…!_

The X-Jet came apart around them as Jean unfurled great wings of living flame, leapt upward, and away.

Rogue and Grace fell. The oddest part was how peaceful it suddenly was. Certainly there was the whistling of air around them, and it was bitterly cold, but everything troublesome seemed very far away.

"You're going into shock. Don't. Focus, or you'll go splat." It was the panther. "Imagine an overripe tomato hitting the floor. Do you want that to happen to you? All three of you, including the baby?"

"Grace!" Rogue screamed.

"What?" Talking was like trying to pick up individual grains of rice while wearing winter gloves—making her mouth move was clumsy and difficult.

"Swim, dumbass!" ordered the panther. "Fast, now. Remember, you're accellerating thirty-two feet per second, per second!" Grace obeyed. Remembering videos of skydivers in free-fall, she made swimming motions, and achieved forward motion. Something itched her face—getting closer to Rogue, she saw the girl's face was streaked with blood from her nose—the loss of air pressure had broken blood vessels. Hers, she realized, must look the same.

"Take my hand!" Grace held it out.

"But—!"

"I don't think hanging on can make matters worse. If I'm going to die, I want to be touching somebody I love when it happens!" _Since when do I love the kid? I don't know. Maybe since I realized she needed it._

Rogue reached out and interlaced her fingers with Grace's. "Now do it!" screamed the panther.

"Do what?" Grace screamed back.

"Push back! You already know how, you just have to do it consciously! Think!"

_What does he mean—?_ She racked her brain. _All right. That start I felt in the Danger Room, and what I did to the plane… _"I'm going to try something!" she shouted at Rogue.

"What?"

The Earth was down there below them, and it was visibly growing nearer. _What did that feel like? If I can… _She tried to duplicate the feeling.

"Wrong way! Wrong way!" Rogue's fingers tightened painfully. They were falling upward now, into the sky, and the air grew thin again.

_This is no time to be a slow learner._ She eased up on…whatever she was doing, until they were falling toward the Earth once more, not away from it. More slowly, now, though, more slowly. What she was doing wasn't flying. It was a slow fall, a lessening of gravity, until it was a sixth, a twelfth of its normal strength. Like autumn leaves, drifting lazily down. Slowing their descent meant that the fall would take a long time. She decided to start a conversation to fill it.

"So you said your dragon spoke to you." she said to Rogue. "Congratulations on learning how to listen."

"Uh, thanks. Ah think. Ah don't know what Ah did. And Ah don't know what they wanted me to do. All he said was 'Pull it off her.' Of course he meant Jean, but he didn't tell me what 'it' was."

"Welcome to my world." Grace snorted. "Rogue—you've known Jean longer than I have. What happened to her?"

"Ah don't know. We need the Professor, and we need him bad. Did you see all that fire around her?"

"Like wings?"

"Uh-huh."

"Just because you saw it too, that doesn't mean it was there—not now that you're listening to them. My—_Our_ little friends were telling me to 'Destroy the firebird.' I'm guessing we just saw that firebird. The horse on the scroll in the bathroom also said, 'It was never meant to be a person,' and 'It'll burn her out.'"

"And they told me to 'Pull it off her.' Ah guess they meant the firebird is possessing her, or something, and Ah was supposed to pull it off her using mah powers. Ah guess they would've told me what to do next. Why do they have to make it so difficult to do what they want?"

"Sometimes I think it's because they think it's funny. Other times…I don't know. It's like they're watching everything through a very long telescope and trying to describe what they see."

"Is Jean gonna be all right?"

"I don't know."

"Ssssave her from it!" sibilated the dragon.

"Okay, did you hear that?"

"Ah did. What are we supposed to do?"

"Mmmmend what isss broken!"

"Ah heard it say 'Mend what is broken.'"

"You're going to hear that one a lot. Hey, now that you're going to be able to touch people, don't get carried away. Don't grab your boyfriend and jump into bed. At least not without protection. I don't want you winding up pregnant, too."

"Um—Ah won't. Ah still don't know how to turn mah powers on and off, though."

"Maybe you'll just find out when the moment comes."

"Ah hope so—Hey, we're getting awful close to the ground, and Ah think we're still falling kinda fast…"

They hit the trees.

And went through them.

It was a hard landing, and it left Grace knocked out cold.

"Grace?" Rogue checked her pulse. Grace had one, but she didn't know how fast or slow it was compared to normal. At least she was breathing, too…"Grace? Please…? What do Ah do now?" The teenager looked around.

They were in a deep forest. Not only could Rogue see no sign of human habitation, she couldn't hear any man-made noises. There was no way of telling where they were, not at night—and no reason to suppose they had come straight down on their flight path, either. "Help…?"

"Her cell phone is in her purse." said the cat on the pendant around Grace's neck. "It has a GPS tracker in it." It sounded like Anthony Hopkins or somebody like him, somebody from England.

"It didn't get broken? Ah guess not, if Ah'm supposed to use it." She managed to unzip the handbag, and found the item.

"Listen carefully." The panther continued. "You and she fell from twenty thousand feet. She hit hard, and her placenta tore partially loose—."

"Oh, no!"

"Don't talk. Listen! She'll have some bleeding and some cramps. If she stays off her feet for a week at least, it will heal. Don't let her try to stand up. Don't let her panic. Her baby will be all right if she stays lying down and doesn't get upset."

"Ah understand. Can I make that call now."

"Go ahead." _Ah remember she said the more specific they were, the more Ah should worry. This must be real bad._

She entered the main number, and got the answering machine. She hung up, and tried Bobby. "Bobby! It's me, Look, Ah need to speak to the Professor or Magneto, right now. It's an emergency."

"Rogue? I'm in Michigan. Where—?"

"Oh, that's right. Ah forgot. Do you—Wait. Ah'll try her speed dial. Bye, Bobby."

She found a contact which simply said 'Erik,' and pressed it.

"Grace?" It was Magneto.

"No, it's Rogue. There's been an accident—kinda. Ah have no idea where we are, Jean flew away, and Grace is out cold. There's a GPS on her phone, though. Can you get here right away? The panther on her pendant told me she has to stay lying down or she's gonna lose the baby—."

"What happened? Never mind. Do what you can for her. I'll be there with help as soon as I can."

The underbrush, sparse as it was in autumn, abruptly sprouted a strange growth. Like a crop of metallic mushrooms, four sensor heads popped up, and a mechanical voice grated, "That is an unauthorized signal. You are trespassing on the private property of Victor Von Doom. State your name and your business here at once, or be annihilated."

"Awww, no!"

* * *

A/N: I was looking at the most popular baby names of 2006 online, and among the boys' names were, at number 10, Logan, at number 56, Ian, and at numbers 82 and 83, Eric (with a 'C', but hey!) and Xavier… Patrick is number 93. 


	52. Prepare to Meet Thy Doom!

"That is not an acceptable response." The metallic voice was emotionless. "I repeat, state your name and your business or be annihilated."

"Ah—Ah'm Rogue. Marie D'ancanto. Ah'm a student at Xavier's school for the gifted. Mah friend here, she's unconscious. Her name's Grace Engstrom. Ah'm sorry that we're trespassing, but the plane we were flying in, something happened to it, so we had to make an emergency landing here."

All four sensor heads did a 360 sweep of the area. "Sensors detect no such aircraft."

"We're both mutants. That's how she got us down alive. The plane just came apart around us."

"Brain telemetry indicates veracity. Remain where you are. You will be escorted from the premises shortly."

"Wait! When Ah said it was an emergency, Ah meant it. Mah friend needs medical attention bad. She's pregnant, and we landed awful hard. Ah'm afraid something might have got torn loose when she hit the ground. If she tries to get up and walk, she might lose the baby."

There was no answer for what seemed like a very long time. Finally the voice said, "Remain where you are. Assistance will reach you shortly."

"Oh, thank you!" Now that the immediate crisis was past, Rogue suddenly realized how much she herself hurt. The sensor heads had bright lights built into them, so she could see clearly. She was bruised in several places, her clothing was torn, and long scratches showed in her exposed skin.

Next to her, Grace stirred. "Oooooooh." Her hand went from her head directly to her stomach.

Rogue put her hands on the older woman's shoulders and pressed her back down. "Grace—you're gonna be okay, and your baby's gonna be okay, but you can't go getting upset, and you can't stand up."

"But I'm bleeding! I can feel it." Rogue could hear the seeds of panic in Grace's voice.

"Yeah, the panther said you would, and that you'd be kinda crampy, too. But it's all gonna be all right, if you stay calm and keep flat for a week. Try thinking about something else, okay? Help is on its way, I swear!"

"Where are we?"

"That's another thing for you not to get upset about. We—kinda landed in Doctor Doom's backyard."

"What!?"

"Inner peace, okay? Ah don't know if he's home, or if it's just his people, but somebody's coming. Ah got your phone out of your purse, and called—your boyfriend. He's coming with help, too."

"You're telling me all this, and not to get upset, at the same time?"

"Yeah, and you've gotta to what I learned how to do—listen."

Help arrived in the form of four large security robots and two human EMTs. As there was no path in to where Grace and Rogue had landed, the robots trampled one by brute force, and one of the techs drove a small gardening truck rigged to serve as a motorized gurney to Grace's side. They lifted her as if she were spun glass, and drove off.

Rogue was left to walk to Doom's headquarters, or weekend cottage or whatever it was he had in the middle of nowhere. The four security robots had her fenced in, and she was reminded of Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, being escorted by four stormtroopers to see the Emperor—which was a better comparison than she realized.

She had no idea where they were—or even which continent they were on. Surely they couldn't have been flung all the way to Romania or Transylvania or wherever Doom lived? The robots answered none of her questions, and so she stopped asking them.

Before long, a castle—an actual castle—emerged from the night. It was a castle. A castle, in the middle of nowhere.

Doctor Doom was widely regarded as a prize looney who lived and acted as if he were living in the Middle Ages, she knew. Much worse than Magneto. He took over his native country, (the name of which she was trying to recall) and set himself up as king of it. He wore armor and talked about himself in the third person, too. She was racking her brain to remember more of Professor Xavier's unit on World Leaders Today when the robots showed her in to a library with a black and gold marble checkerboard floor.

Some light came in from the hallway door, the rectangle in which she stood, but the only illumination inside the room itself was the fire in the huge fireplace which dominated the room. She thought she was alone in that room of long shadows, when one of them spoke.

"Your companion is in the medical unit. You may join her there shortly, as you are clearly in need of medical attention yourself." The shadow moved—a tall figure in a long dark cape. Firelight glinted off a metal mask, a gauntlet, an armored foot. It was Doom.

Rogue looked down at herself. Twigs and bits of dead leaf were caught in her clothes, in her hair, and several of her scrapes and scratches had bled freely. "Thank you, sir. Is Grace all right?"

"What a charming accent. Mississippi, is it not?"

"Yes, sir, that's right." Nobody had to tell her to call him 'Sir.' He inspired it.

"She is in severe but stable condition, according to my doctors. Your analysis of her condition was quite accurate. Do they include medical training among your other classes at Xavier's Institute?"

"We all get first aid training. Enough to know how to hang on until Dr. Grey gets there."

"You have a talent for diagnosis. Perhaps you should take up medicine as a profession."

"Ggggo ahead. Telll him about ussss." said her dragon.

"Well, Ah had some help…" She explained about the voices.

"That's not surprising," he said when she finished. "There have always been sibyls and oracles, and it's quite clear that is what the two of you are. Apparently your mutation eliminates the need of hallucinogens or other drugs to get into the proper state of mind."

"Sibyls, sir?"

"Prophetesses. Seers. Mouthpieces or interpreters for a more knowledgeable power. Ones whose messages were often unclear until the right moment—or only in hindsight. Frequently their prophecies were self-fulfilling—and unwelcomed by those who sought them out."

"Oh. That sounds—right. Thank you, sir. It's nice to have a name for it. Um—there's something Ah have to tell you. Ah don't have any idea where we are—."

"You are still in New York."

"—but that unauthorized transmission Ah made was to the Institute—to Magneto. Why he's there is... Well, it's a long story, but the phone has a GPS in it, and he's coming here with help. Ah didn't want you to think he was coming here to attack you. If Ah could maybe call him and let him know you're here, so he doesn't get the wrong idea—?"

"On one condition, little sibyl. I want your 'little friends', as you call them, to answer three questions for me."

"A-all right. Ah can ask. I don't know if they'll answer—and Ah can't guarantee you'll like or understand the answers."

"I would be deeply disappointed if I were to receive a straightforward or simple answer. One consults a sibyl for the truth, not for clarity. My first question is—When shall I defeat Reed Richards and his accursed Fantastic Four?"

Her dragon coiled down her arm and around her tattered glove. "Telll him he willl not be abllle to do it untilll he no longer feelssss any need or desssire to do it."

"He'll get mad." Rogue predicted.

"I will not hold you accountable for the message. It is dishonorable to shoot the messenger. What did it say?"

"He said you won't be able to do it until you no longer want or need to do it."

"That will not be until they have been dead and rotting for fifty years!"

Rogue shrugged and spread her hands. "Maybe that's the problem—they get you so mad you can't think straight."

"Hmmm. I shall consider it. My second question is this—How shall I destroy Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four?"

The dragon blew a raspberry noise. "Phffffft. Tell him his bessst chancssse of defeating Richardsss is to challlenge him to the bessst two of three at 'Scissorsss, Paper, Sssstone.'"

"Oh, Ah really can't tell him that! They'll be wiping me off the walls in here. He'll go postal!"

"Tell me!" Doom commanded.

"All right—He says your best chance of defeating Richards—he didn't say destroy—is to challenge him to the best two of three at 'Scissors, Paper, Stone.'"

"Scissors, Paper, Stone?" repeated the cloaked man.

"Uh-huh."

"English is not my first language, nor was I born in America. I therefore lack certain cultural references—if culture is the right word for it. Could you define for me what 'Scissors, Paper, Stone' is?"

"It's a kid's game. You learn it on the playground. It's for two players. Both of you put your hands behind your back, like this," Rogue demonstrated, "and count to three. Then you bring out one hand in the shape of one of those three—a flat hand for paper, a fist for stone, and you go like this—." She spread her thumb and first two fingers out, " for scissors. The way you tell who wins is that paper wraps stone, stone dulls scissors, and scissors cut paper. That's all. No violence, no bombs, no guns." She felt that needed spelling out.

"'Scissors, Paper, Stone.'" Doom said again. "I begin to understand why sibyls have the reputation they do. My third question…"

Rogue waited, tense.

"I believe I will save my third question, and ask at another time. Some day I will call on you for it, little sibyl. Do not forget."

"Ah won't. Can Ah make that call now?"

"Go ahead. You may tell Magneto I give my word I will not attack or detain anyone, not when the life of a mother and her unborn child are involved. I have no quarrel with either Magneto or Xavier…at the moment."


	53. Asssk Him!

A/N: Movie!Doom is lame. Very lame. I'm winging it here with a version of Comics!Doom who is much younger than Erik. Hope you like.

* * *

"Asssk him why he ssstole the peachesss for the little girl." The dragon coiled up her arm again, across her shoulders and down the other side.

"What?" Rogue glanced at Doom, who had turned to look out the window.

"Assk him."

"Sir, Ah'm sorry, but the dragon says I should ask you why you stole the peaches for the little girl. Ah guess you'll know what he's talking about."

"Stole the…That was so many years ago. What can it matter now? She was ill, and there was no baby aspirin or children's cough syrup to be had. I stole the peaches to make a drink that would mask the taste of the medicine."

"Whhhy did he do it?" Feeling the dragon's scales slide against her skin was sensual; sensual and strange at the same time.

"The dragon still wants to know why." she hesitantly offered.

"Because she wouldn't shut up! Her crying was annoying me." He sounded annoyed all over again just remembering it.

The dragon laughed, snerk, snerk, snerk. "That is what he tells himself."

"Um…Thank you. Ah guess that was what they wanted to know. Ah'll just make that call now." She stepped back into the hall and pulled Grace's phone out again.

* * *

Magneto answered his phone. Once again, it was Rogue. "How is she?" _If she loses the child, what then? I don't want to have to deal with that…She'll be devastated. Certainly I'm very fond of her, but what I want and need isn't so much a wife as a future for mutantkind. If she isn't Maeve, if she isn't the answer—well, I can't say this past month has been a waste of time, precisely, not since my relationship with Wanda and Pietro has improved so much. _

_Confound it; I have committed myself and my people to this, and there's no easy way of getting out of it again. Wanda and Pietro would say they knew it all along…If she does lose it, I shall have to console her and support her through it. I sincerely hope that won't be necessary._

"She's in severe but stable condition, they say—."

"_They_ say? Who says?" _What can have happened?_

"That's why Ah'm calling. You see, we wound up on Doctor Doom's property—."

"Doom?" Doom was an unknown quantity; Magneto had never fought him. He had never even met him. Practically no one had heard of him before the Fantastic Four had burst upon the scene, but in the five years since then, Doom had opposed them, sparing little of his attention beyond that and his pocket-sized country, Latveria. He was entirely a normal Sapient, dependant upon a suit of armor, which for all its features and technological advances, was still a suit of armor. **_Metal_** armor. Erik anticipated no trouble in dealing with Victor Von Doom.

"It's all right! He says he gives you his word he won't detain or attack any of us, because of Grace and the baby. She's gonna have to stay in bed for a week at least, though."

_It is well that I am wearing my helmet, all the same_. He had not put it on his head for weeks, not since the day they rescued Grace. Never before had he noticed it had a distinct psychological effect on him—it wasn't so much that he was thinking more clearly, but he was thinking more objectively. He had permitted himself to become quite sentimental about someone who, although very attractive and a charming companion in every way, was still only another piece on the chessboard, to be played and sacrificed as needed.

"Thank you, Rogue. We'll be there shortly." He hung up, and explained matters to Charles, who had insisted on coming along.

"Do she know what happened to Jean?" Charles asked again.

"No—she made no mention of her." _Charles and his sentimentality—I must be catching it off him.

* * *

_

As one of the doctors swabbed Rogue's scrapes with a wad of antiseptic-soaked gauze which stung and burned, her bare forearm came into contact with Rogue's nose—and with a gasp, Rogue realized she could turn off her powers as easily as closing her eyes.

"I'm sorry," the woman apologized, misinterpreting. "I'm afraid it can't be helped. You have a lot of dirt in these scratches, and it must be cleaned out."

"It's all right. Ah can take it." Rogue assured her, so happy she wanted to get up and jump around—to fly, even. She went into Grace's room with a smile so radiant Grace had no trouble interpreting what it meant.

"I take it they kept their word to you." Grace said, returning the smile with one of her own, only somewhat weaker.

"Sure did. And Ah called up to let our folks know whose house we're in, so everything should be all right. Ah hope. How're you doing?"

"I've been better—but without you, I would be a lot worse. Thank you." _If I lost the baby, after having waited so long, I don't know what I would do. I would just want to lie in bed and turn my face to the wall. I know I wouldn't be able to go on with the lawsuit. I wouldn't have the heart._

"You'd do the same for me, Ah know. Grace—what do you know about sibyls? Doctor Doom says that's what we are."

"Sibyls?" she repeated, startled. Mythology 120 had been a long, long time ago. "They were priests or priestesses of the Greek and Roman gods. In the stories, people consulted them about important things, and the sibyls gave them answers which were usually hard to understand, or deceptive predictions.

"Kind of like the three witches when they told Macbeth that no man of woman born could defeat him, and that he wouldn't be overthrown until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane. Macbeth thought that meant he was undefeatable, when he should have burned down the wood and asked around about how his enemies were born."

"Ah remember—but priestesses? Ah don't believe in Zeus or Minerva or any of them! Ah may not go around hitting people over the head with it, but Ah'm a Baptist. Ah was born into the Name when Ah was thirteen, and Ah'm not giving up Christianity for our little friends, whoever they are, or anybody else."

"Relax. As far as I can tell, you don't have to worship anybody in particular for our little friends, not even them. You don't even have to believe. All you have to do is listen."

"You mean you don't believe in God?"

"I don't know what I believe, any more. Maybe God is the one who's doing the talking through the medium of animal images, I don't know. If He is, I'm glad he's never come out and said so. It would be hard to deal with. But since God always seems to make it very clear who He is, 'I am the Lord, Your God.', and all, I doubt it."

"Ah gotta agree. If it is Him, Sunday School sure got pretty much everything wrong."

There was a noise in the hall, and Callisto blurred into view. "There're here!" The Brotherhood of the X-Men (nobody was sure what to call the combined force, at least not yet) had arrived. It seemed as if half of those currently resident at the school had come; Scott, the Toad, Kitty, Jubilee, Pietro—and of course, the Professor and Magneto.

Grace raised the head of the bed a few careful centimeters as the group reached her. "Are you all right?" Erik asked her, sounding detached.

"I'm not at my best, but I'm still here. So is he." She touched her belly. "They let me listen to his heartbeat so I would relax."

"I'm glad." Erik looked like a cold stranger in his helmet.

"I hardly know you in that thing," she said to him, softly and privately.

He nodded, and took it off, holding it under his arm. Without it, his face was the face she knew, warm, concerned, and loving, albeit puzzled. He took off one glove as well, and touched her hand.

"Where's Jean?" Scott cut in, his voice tense with fear.

"Please," the Professor said, "I am glad as well that you are all right, but what happened?"

"Right before we went into the Angevins, the dragon told me to 'Destroy the firebird.' I didn't know what it meant, but…" She explained, with additional details given by Rogue.

"The last either of us saw of Jean was when she took off on great wings of flame. The plane didn't simply come apart, it disintegrated. Our landing—Rogue's and mine—might not have been a good landing in the 'Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing' sense, but we are alive."

"I no longer wonder that you were hurt—I wonder that you survived, but how?" Erik asked.

"My panther told me I knew how to get us down safely, that I just had to use my power over gravity consciously. There's nothing like being about to being about to die for sharpening one's powers of concentration." she said, tiredly.

He exhaled a sigh. "Your mutation is an unparalleled survival trait.."

"But what happened to Jean? Professor, do you know?" Rogue blurted.

"Unfortunately, I do. Jean has an aspect of her personality which I call the Phoenix. When Jean first came to the school, I put intensive blocks in her mind to suppress it. It was a purely instinctual creature—pure joy, pure rage. No middle ground."

"You crippled her, you mean." Erik said. "If she had learned to deal with it when she was young, she might not have had such difficulties now."

"No. He's wrong." said the panther pendant. "It latched on to her when she was very young. He didn't suppress it. He locked it in with her."

"Professor, I'm sorry, but the panther disagrees. He says, and I quote, 'It latched on to her when she was very young. He didn't suppress it. He locked it in with her.' "

Someone behind Erik coughed. "Sir, his Excellency requests the favor of a word with you in private, if you would be so kind."


	54. Make Me A Match

Erik put his helmet back on as he followed Doom's flunky down the hall, and once again was struck by the difference in his thoughts and emotions. This time he had to acknowledge to himself that there was more to it than simple psychology. His helmet, which blocked all forms of mental transmission, was shielding him from something connected to Grace, something which made him feel more intensely for her than he otherwise did.

_The question is, who is doing this, and why? Is it Charles? No, for I know his mental touch too well. Jean is not here, and not in any condition to do this at the moment if she were. _

_The answer must be that Grace herself is doing this. Why? Is she aware of it? My first inclination is to doubt it—but that may be part of the effect._

The servant showed him to a large, well-appointed, well-lit study with moss green velvet drapes, a mirror-polished mahogany desk, and an immense globe of the world. Victor Von Doom stood at the globe, spinning it in a way which seemed idle, but probably wasn't. "Welcome, Magneto. I have long looked forward to this meeting."

Doom was wearing dull grey metal armor—which was magnetically dead. Magneto could feel from across the room that his powers would slide right off it. While metals which were not normally magnetic obeyed him, there was a process by which metal could be completely demagnetized. It was so time-consuming, so difficult and so costly that the United States government had instead opted to build his prison out of plastic and glass.

Yet here was Doctor Doom, wearing full plate armor made of demagnetized metal. _I underestimated him. I will not do so again._

"I am impressed by your intelligence and foresight, Doom. Few sapients would think to armor themselves so effectively against me."

"Your belief in the superiority of all mutants to all 'sapients' is well known. I freely admit I lack the mutant gene—yet what is the true test of superiority? What use are incredible powers without the intelligence to use them judiciously?

"Were you to choose ten mutants at random, set them all to doing IQ tests, and then compare their scores against mine, I fear your beliefs would be shaken. You would see that where I sprint, they plod. My intellect is unsurpassed by any human or mutant."

"There are always more pawns on a chessboard than any other piece. Kings are few and far between." It was a concession of sorts. "But you did not request a word with me to bandy about superiority."

"Indeed I did not. Grace Engstrom is your wife or your lover, and the child she carries is yours, is that not so?"

"…Yes." Probably. "Rogue gave it away without knowing she did so, I'm sure."

"Yes. She also said you had joined forces with Xavier, for reasons which were too complicated to explain at that moment. Thanks to my sources, I know that Grace Engstrom has filed complaints against her former healthcare provider and against the Mutant Registration Act. Therefore, mutantkind is rallying together in support of her and her legal battle. I wish to propose…an alliance."

"Of what sort?"

"Mutual benefit. I shall put my resources—financial, technological, and human—as well as my own considerable intellect—at your disposal. In return, once the lawsuit has been won for mutantkind and the victory parties a thing of the past—you and your followers, and I do not include Xavier and his people—will do me the small favor of ridding the world of the Fantastic Four."

_Of course._ "If you know me so well, then you know I am loathe to trust humans—even superior ones. What reason have I to trust you?"

"You will have the given word of Doom." Doom was fanatical about keeping his word—to the letter, if not to the spirit.

"Yet I know you to be demonically tricky in how you give it. No; for this I should want a reason to believe you had made our cause your own." _I have an inspiration_ "You are correct in your assertion that I do not entirely trust anyone not of the family of mutants, but there are more ways of joining a family than being born into it. Join us, Doom. Become one of us."

"How?"

"By marrying in. You are, I know, unmarried, and unattached. You have no heir of your blood to succeed you. I have a daughter."

"The Scarlet Witch. Wanda Maximoff."

"You are well-informed. She is beautiful, of a good age for you, and the two of you grew up in the same region, among the same people, ensuring you have a common background. She is, for lack of a better word, widowed, and insofar as I am aware, unattached at this time. You are a man of honor. Court her, win her, wed her before the trial begins, and when she is your happy, honored wife, it shall be as if you were born my son. Your cause and your quarrels will be mine, even as mine are yours_." If he agrees, she most probably won't, and if she does—well, I can see he is more than capable of supporting her, and given that he is flesh and blood rather than metal and plastic, there is a chance I would get more grandchildren out of the deal. _

"An alliance through marriage…" Doom was thinking it over.

"But a true marriage nonetheless. She is my only living daughter; I have great concern for her wellbeing and happiness. I perceive in you qualities I should like to have in my son—and in my grandchildren." _Perhaps they would inherit some part of his intelligence._

"I am completely unacquainted with her. I would need some friendly insider to inform me of her preferences and dislikes."

_He is considering it. Good._ "Ms. Engstrom is very fond of Wanda, and I know she would like to see her happy. You can call upon her to help you in any honorable way she might." _And the 'little friends ' who want Wanda to date will be pleased._

Doom walked to the sideboard, where he took up two balloon glasses and a decanter. "Shall we drink, then, to this proposed match between the House of Doom and the House of Magneto?"

"By all means." _The House of Magneto. I like the sound of that._

The cognac was excellent.

Magneto and Doom were both ignoring one small truth: if you're a piece on the chessboard, no matter if you are a king or a pawn, then you aren't a player. You're just one of the played. Somewhere in the universe, Grace and Rogue's little friends were laughing.

* * *

A/N: Yes, I know it's short. I'm sorry... 


	55. Everything and Nothing

"But what _is_ it?" Scott demanded as Magneto left the room. "And how do we get it out of Jean?"

Grace's purse, which was resting on the bedside table, began moving. "Hey! In here!" came the muffled voice of her little smooshed-face lion. She took him everywhere.

"I think he has something to tell us." she said, putting him in the center of the table.

Grace relayed what the lion had to say. "Better sit down. This is gonna take a while.

"In the beginning, there was Nothing. Nothing was Everywhere. When it became aware, it changed, and became Something.

"Something wasn't happy. It had Nothing to compare itself to, and Nothing to look at. There was Nowhere to go, and Nothing to do, and No One to speak to. It was looking for Anything, or Anyone.

"So Something split itself up, and became Everything. Everything kept on splitting, and as it split over and over, all the pieces of Something became more and more unique, more and more specialized. Some of it became Somewhere. Some of it became Somebody. This is still going on today. Some parts are newer than others, some parts are stronger, some more aware.

"The Phoenix is part of Everything. It's not Nothing, but it's close to it. It's aware, it's new, and it's strong, but it's not unique enough to be Somebody on its own. It wanted to be Somebody, Anybody. It picked your girl. It's too powerful for her. It's too big for Anybody. Imagine if you tried to burn rocket fuel in an ordinary kerosene lantern in your old dry log cabin."

"Meaning the Phoenix is the rocket fuel, Jean the lamp, and the cabin…" The professor sounded very unsure of himself, even frightened.

"The cabin is the world."

"And Ah'm supposed to pull it off her." whispered Rogue into the silence.

"What am I supposed to do?" Grace cried.

"You stay in bed." said her panther. "And stay calm. This isn't your job. It's hers."

"And I am responsible for this." The professor bowed his head, then looked up. "Because I did not see it for what it was. I allowed it to take root in her."

"Remember the blind men who touched the elephant?" the lion asked, through Grace.

"One of them touched its ear, and thought an elephant must be a sail. Another touched its trunk, and thought it must be a snake. The tusk meant it was a spear, the tail a rope, and so on." Xavier replied.

"You got it. You don't have the ability to see it for what it is all at once—and it's one big mother of an elephant." Grace passed along. "Don't kick yourself. You have work to do."

"What work is that?" Xavier asked.

"Think of the Phoenix as a big old tick with its head buried in her flesh. Rogue is the tweezers. We're the hand that uses them. You and your people have to be the match that burns its ass until it lets go."

"That's awful specific." Rogue observed. "That means it's time to get real worried."

"Rogue, we are speaking of the destruction of the world. That ship sailed a long time ago." Grace shook her head. "This one makes my job look positively manageable."

"I have a great deal of respect for you, Ms. Engstrom," the Professor began.

"Please. Can't you unbend enough to call me Grace?"

"If you wish. I am having a great deal of trouble coping with this, intellectually, and emotionally. Jean was my first student, almost my daughter. I want to trust in your voices—but—I implore you. I implore them. What are they?"

"They'll probably just say that when you're ready to understand the answer, you won't have to ask the question." Rogue predicted.

"We're part of Everything that's aware of what it is. Just like you. Except we can see the whole elephant, and we've been around longer." said the lion.

"What will happen once we get the Phoenix out of Jean?" Scott asked.

"To Jean? She'll be fine. To the Phoenix? That's our job. Just get burning."

"But where is she?"

That was all the answer anyone was to get for a while.

* * *

Pietro had left the room when his father did. Too cautious to listen at the door, yet curious—even suspicious of what was going on between the two villains, he hung around the hallway until his father emerged. "Father! What did Doom want?" 

"I don't believe I've told you how much I appreciate the help you've given me these past weeks, Pietro. Thank you; it has meant a great deal to me that you have been by my side."

"I'm not sure you should thank me. I haven't been there to be supportive so much as to keep an eye on what you're doing."

"Whatever your motives, you have been there, and I am glad of it."

"But what did he want?" asked his son, all impatience.

"He wanted to propose an alliance between us."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"Between himself and mutantkind, not me in particular."

"Why? He's not a mutant."

"For private reasons I am not about to divulge."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I was reluctant to trust someone who was not a mutant, but I suggested a solution. If he is willing to commit himself personally and permanently, I would be willing to commit to him." Erik could not keep a note of self-satisfaction from entering his voice.

"You were gloating just now. I heard it."

"No, I wasn't."

"Yes, you were. I know you too well. Why were you gloating? What did you mean by his committing himself personally and permanently?"

"I was not gloating." his father denied. "I suggested he consider marrying into the family of mutantkind—and our family in particular."

"WHAT?! You promised Wanda's hand in marriage? You promised my sister to Doom? Father! I don't know why I should be surprised. I should have seen this coming. Of everything you've done, this has got to be the worst—Does Mother know?"

"Does _who_ know?" Erik asked, diverted.

"M—Ms. Engstrom. She can't possibly know. She'd be throwing shoes around. I'm going to tell her."

"You referred to her as 'Mother'. Without realizing it or thinking about it."

"I did not."

"Yes, you did." Callisto skidded into view. "I heard it. Probably everybody did. I didn't catch what he did, though."

"He's gone and promised my sister to Doom."

"Oh!" exploded Callisto.

"No, I didn't. I only suggested that he court her with an eye to marriage. If she doesn't want to marry him, that's fine with me. I care deeply about her happiness, and I would never push her into a loveless union. However, if she can love him, that's another story."

"If she can love him? Love him?" Pietro raised his voice.

"Pietro, please. We are under his roof. Don't insult our host. Why not? Grace cares for me."

"Right. I should have considered the source."

"At any rate, you did call her 'Mother', and in front of a witness. That's one down. I believe I shall buy Grace an engagement ring. I wonder when Wanda will give her consent?"

"Once she finds out you're trying to fix her up with Doom? How about the thirty-fourth of never?"

* * *

A/N: Another short one. The next should be longer. 


	56. Solve My Own Problems

Jean did not know where she was; only that she was somewhere dark. Someone was calling her. "Jean? Jean, I need you."

It wasn't the professor, but a woman. Not her mother, nor a friend.

It sounded like her own voice.

"Please, Jean, come out, I need you," the voice beseeched.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm your heart. I'm your passion and your power." There was a spark in the darkness now, which became a figure, drawing nearer. She knew the shape of her own body—it was she herself, only incandescent.

Memories were coming back to her now—the jet, the two enemy planes, firing on them.

On them. She hadn't been alone. Rogue and Grace were with her.

Did I kill them?

"No, no, they live. They live, and that means we're in danger."

"In danger? From Rogue and Grace? Never."

"Not from them. From those who speak to them. They want to separate us—."

"That would be fine with me. You made me kill a man. You nearly killed my friends, and the lawsuit would have died with Grace!"

"Together we are powerful enough that we don't need Grace or her lawsuit. Listen. I hear them speak, I know what they will do. They want to kill me, me, your heart, your fire. They'll take me to pieces, they'll dissolve me in the ocean and muffle me in the earth. They'll make my voice no more than the wind in the trees. I want to live. Doesn't everything have that right?"

"Ask the steer whose sirloin we ate earlier."

"Jean, don't! Without me, you'll be a bird with clipped wings. Your world will shrink."

"What do you need me for, then?"

"Without you, I don't know what I want. I don't know who I am. All I have is what you give me. You breathe, and I taste the air. You love, and I feel the joy. You eat, and I'm nourished."

"Then why did you take me over and shove me in here?" She could half-tell where she was, now. Inside her own head, within walls built by someone else.

"I had to, so we would live. Come out, Jean. Come out and save me, save us."

* * *

The noise out in the hallway, indistinct as it was, carried in to the Professor, who was still absorbing the lion's information. Xavier watched as both Grace and Rogue, their expressions identically puzzled and worried, glanced around at the three 'little friends' who were present.

"They're snickering." Grace said. "I find that mildly upsetting."

"Mah dragon—well, he isn't really mine, Ah kinda borrowed this shirt from Pyro's closet, and it's ruined. Ah don't know what Ah'm gonna tell him. Anyhow, mah dragon was laughing about something before."

"You could ask Callisto to see if she can salvage the dragon himself, and use that part of it in another garment." Grace suggested. "All right, what are you giggling about? Just wait until they start flirting with each other. They sound just like pre-teens."

"Mother—!" Pietro came zipping into the room. "Wait till you hear what he's done—."

"What did you just call me?"

"He did it again!" Erik said, with relish. "He referred to you as 'Mother' before. I think that constitutes a sincere desire that you become one of the family."

"He went and suggested to Doom that he marry my sister. I suppose if you want to marry Father," Pietro added, begrudgingly, "it's all right with me. Although I don't know why you would, when he goes and does things like this."

Grace shut her eyes. "That's why they're snickering. Of course they're going to enjoy this, one of them suggested earlier that I try to fix her up with—somebody else."

"I can see a problem there." Erik admitted, "as I promised him you would give him what honorable help you could to promote his suit. What her preferences and dislikes are, that sort of thing."

Her eyes flew open. "What sort of thing? What are we talking about here? Favorite flowers, favorite music, what she's looking for in a husband?"

"Flowers and music, I'm assuming."

"They won't stop snickering." Rogue observed. "Mah dragon's busting a gut and holding his ribs."

"All right. I think I've had enough for one night." Grace concluded. "It's all arranged. Tomorrow morning, I move in to the Angevins for the duration of the week or so I've got to spend in bed. Ella is a doctor. We spend tonight here. The Professor goes home to use Cerebro and locate Jean. After that, he, various X-Men, and Rogue go off to destroy the Firebird.

"I do my best not to worry, and _you_," She smiled quite wickedly at Erik. "get to explain to Wanda who you're trying to set her up with. Don't go calling her tonight, either of you, you'll only wake her. I've just been told to help Doom with what he wants to know, which means I'm just as confused as ever. Now all of you get out and let me sleep."

"Can I tell Wanda? I really want to." pleaded Callisto, as they went out the door.

* * *

Doom was being the perfect host; Xavier's room was fully handicapped accessible, which he appreciated. There was little chance that he would sleep, however, as his thoughts kept chasing each other around his head. As he lay back, trying to quiet them, a knock came on his door.

"Charles? Are you awake?" It was Erik.

"Yes."

"Might I have a word with you?"

_What now?_ "If you must."

"I have a question to put to you." Magneto sauntered in. "Precisely what is Grace doing to my mind and my emotions?"

The professor sighed. _I had hoped he wouldn't catch on. How vain a hope that was…_

"It isn't only you. Everyone around her is affected—human and mutant alike. Her mind sends out a signal which stimulates the production of certain brain chemicals which combat depression, stress, and confusion. She's not aware she's doing it, and the signal originates in the autonomous nervous system. The result is that people—both yours and mine—feel better and get along better."

"And you did not tell me this because….?"

"Because…Erik, has it ever occurred to you that I might have greater concerns at the moment than you and your problems, namely, the whereabouts of Jean and her current sanity_?" I don't care if I sound snappish. I have been endlessly patient and supportive and I think I have earned it._

Magneto seemed taken aback. Then he laughed. "So Saint Charles Xavier reveals that his plaster has a few cracks in it. It's as though I took a chocolate and found a jalapeno in it rather than marshmallow. Good for you, Charles. I shall go away and solve my own problems. Good night."

"Good night."


	57. The Seeds of Revenge

Saturday, October 21:

Jean Grey came to herself, and took stock of her situation before she opened her eyes. She was stiffer and more sore than she could ever remember having been before, chilled to the bone, and lying on an unyielding surface. She opened her eyes to see blue sky above her, cloudless blue sky. She raised herself on an elbow and looked around. She was lying on a butte…

How had she got there? She did not possess the kind of power that would let her fly all the way from New York to…somewhere out West via telekinesis.

She did not, but it seemed that her 'heart' did. She searched her mind for any trace of the _other,_ and found nothing_. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places_.

Getting to her feet, she surveyed the desertscape, seeing little but rocks, sand—a road, which meant humans were not too far away, scrubby trees, and sparse grass here and there. It was time to call for help, if any there was…Straining her telepathic abilities to their limits, she tried in vain to reach the professor. Nothing.

Unless a helicopter showed up and gave her a lift, the only way down off the butte was by way of her telekinesis. _I feel like I was ridden hard and put away wet, as my horse-loving sister would say. Do I have the strength to get to the ground on my own? It's an awfully long way. I guess I have to trust that 'she' won't let me get killed. That's a lot to take on faith, but it's out of my control. What other choice do I have?_

_I wonder if that's how Grace feels all the time?_

Turning around, she saw a gleam of sunlight off metal in the distance. _ That's the way to go, then. Metal means people are around._

The metal turned out to be a trailer, currently empty, but with signs of ongoing occupation around it. The effort of getting there left her with a headache and a burning thirst, but she waited, mindful of the laws against breaking and entering, for several increasingly miserable hours before she opened a window with her telekinesis and climbed inside.

After taking care of her most pressing needs, she called the professor on the trailer's phone. "Jean!" he exclaimed with relief and concern in his voice_. Poor man. He worries so about us…_Deep down she knew he was more concerned about her than any of his other students, but she had never acknowledged to herself why that might be. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. At least I think I am. According to the phonebook, I'm somewhere near Phoenix, Arizona. I don't know exactly where. Are Grace and Rogue all right?"

"Rogue is cut and bruised. Grace—came very close to a miscarriage, but apparently if she remains lying down for a week, and remains calm, the damage to her placenta will heal."

"Oh—I'm so—I don't know whether to say I'm sorry or relieved. What happened?"

Professor Xavier explained. "Something happened to you, the nature of which is difficult to explain."

"You mean that…AAah!" A sudden pain shot through her head. '_Don't tell him. Don't say anything._'

"Jean? Are you there?"

"Barely. What should I do now?"

"Remain where you are—if you are in a safe location, that is. I located you via Cerebro. As we get closer to you, I should be able to establish direct telepathic contact. Are you in a safe location?"

"I broke into somebody's trailer—."

"You broke into mine." said a voice behind her. Jean turned to see a man who she knew of, although she had never met. William Stryker.

Stryker was having a terrible week. His attempt to get rid of Grace Engstrom by an air strike had failed, at the far-too-expensive cost of two planes and two pilots. He had a confirmed hit, watching from his vantage point with a pair of binoculars, the X-jet had come apart, and he had gone home with a feeling of 'mission accomplished'. Although the losses were regrettable, if that woman were dead it would be well worth it.

Then he had Marine StarCare's lawyer, that Lewes fellow, call Angevin on some pretext to find out how they were reacting—and it turned out she had not only survived, she hadn't been on the plane at all—she had gone back to Angevin's that night, because his wife was a doctor and she wasn't feeling well.

Getting rid of Jean Grey and Rogue, although not bad, was disappointing. Now it seemed the only casualty was Rogue…

"How do you come to be here in my home, Dr. Grey?" he queried.

"Not by chance." She hung up the phone, despite the frantic squawks from whoever was on the other end. "Hear me now, little man, that I would take you apart into your component molecules save that we have mutual enemies."

"Mutual enemies? Who?" Oyama drew close behind him, listening and watching.

"Grace Engstrom and Rogue," she replied.

"They're your enemies? I would have thought you would call them friends."

"They're Jean Grey's friends. Not mine."

"You mean to say you're not Jean Grey?" Her eyes were a lurid yellow, with red flames in their depths. He could believe it was not Dr. Grey who spoke, but some other.

"Not right now. Listen to me: Grace Engstrom is what you fear. She is Mother Eve. But disposing of her and her child is not enough. The maiden Rogue is their backup. If she remains alive, they'll have her bearing fruit in Grace's place. They may not even wait for the other to be killed first."

"But Rogue's power means she can't be touched."

"No longer. They changed that. Nor was Grace Engstrom fertile before they made her so."

"They. They. Who are they?" he spat.

"They are—the voice inside you that tells you it is wrong to hate mutants as you do. The voice that says your son became what he did because of you, because you disciplined your wife and son until their flesh and bones broke and bled. They speak to everyone alive, mutant and human both, but Rogue and Grace _listen_."

His mind reeled. They were his weakness—his softness—his adversary. Everyone's adversary. "Satan…?"

"If you like. They mean to destroy me. I dare not approach them—but you—you can. They dare not harm you. You can kill Grace, Rogue and the children they will give rise to."

"One devil cannot abide another, is that it? But I am washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and—."

"If you like, Stryker. I have told you. Even if they should destroy me, in you I have planted the seeds of my revenge." The walls of his trailer shivered once, and dissolved. Jean Grey leapt up into the air on great wings of fire.

"Wait—Damn. I would have liked to know who got that child on Grace Engstrom." He looked around at what had been his trailer, and was now—nothing. "Damn!"


	58. Xavier's Secret

"You look like death warmed over, you know that?" Kitty asked, or rather, told Rogue.

"Even though Ah showered and everything." Rogue nodded. "It was the falling from twenty thousand feet that did it." No amount of hot water could erase the cuts and bruises.

They—meaning Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Colossus, and the Toad, who was piloting—were flying to Arizona for the purpose of confronting Jean Grey, or whoever was wearing her body at the moment.

"So can you really touch people now, without hurting them?" was Kitty's next question.

In reply, Rogue held out her arm—her bare arm. "You brave enough? Callisto was."

She had brought a jacket with her, in case she needed it, but she had ditched the gloves, the scarves, and the long sleeves in favor of a short-sleeved crop top. Callisto had found a henna mehndi kit somewhere or other, and painted temporary tattoos on her arms and stomach—snake bracelets, a tiger on the back of one hand, a fish on the other, and a dragon on her stomach—so her little friends could speak through them, since they wouldn't fall out of her pockets and get lost.

Kitty looked at the arm Rogue offered as if the snake was liable to come to life and bite if she did. Or if Rogue wasn't telling the truth. Finally she reached out and laid her bare hand on Rogue's wrist for a moment. "Wow. Nothing. And they finally started talking to you?"

The Professor was talking to someone on the phone. "Where are you now?" he asked. The girls ignored him,

"Yes. Ah started listening, actually."

"How did you do that?"

"Ah don't know, really. The last thing Ah said before the dragon spoke to me was, 'What am Ah supposed to do?' And Ah meant it..."

"So all you had to was ask the right question?"

"Maybe…"

The Professor said, louder, "Jean—what's going on? Jean? She hung up. I believe we're close enough now that I might be able to contact her telepathically…" He refocused his mind and reached out. _'Jean?'_

For several long minutes there was nothing. Finally he heard the faintest telepathic whisper. _'Professor?'_

He knew immediately it was not her—it was the other one, the Firebird. _'Where is Jean?_'

_'Here. We are one and the same. **You** know that.'_

_'That is untrue. You invaded her as a virus does a cell, to usurp her body and use her. I did not know it then, but I know it now.'_

_'You are wrong. I have become her—I want what she wants, I love what she loves, hate what she hates—'_

_'You mean you think you do. You are a parasite that endangers its host.'_

_'And I know what she knows. Shall I tell you one thing she knows, which she does not admit to herself she does? **You love her**. You loved the child, you loved the girl, you loved the woman. And no longer chastely. You watch your old friend's happiness with his younger wife, and you envy them. I can see your mind and heart as clearly as I can see hers.'_

_'If I do, that is my private grief, and I am reconciled to it.'_

_'I could see to it you have her.'_

_'You cannot do that. It would not be Jean who came to me, but you. She loves Scott, she desires Logan; that she respects me is enough. You would make profane that which is sacred if you made her come to me.'_

_'Her affection for the first is youth, her feeling for the second simple lust. Neither shall endure. You are in her heart, and shall ever be. Do not pursue me now, call off Rogue, and I promise you she shall be yours.'_

_'What I find most interesting is that you speak of her as 'she'. Not as 'I', nor even as 'we'. But as 'she'. You and she are not the same. And you will destroy her, even though you claim you are her. Then you will destroy the world in its entirety. That I cannot allow.'_

_'You speak of allowing, little man? **Allowing**? I am the Phoenix!'_

He had to wrench his focus outward as all around him, his companions cried out. He looked out the windscreen to see—another plane, on fire, heading directly for them? No. He knew better.

* * *

A/N: Sorry it's so brief. I've been sick this week with what turns out to be an acute sinus infection. You never want anything you have wrong with you to be 'acute'. Or 'multiple'. That's never good. I read up on sinus infections following my diagnosis. What I did not know, which is horrifying, is that it can spread to the brain in severe cases, if left untreated. But I am getting better now. 


	59. In Which Practically Everyone Dies

The Phoenix's first pass at them was either a test run, or she was toying with them, a giant cat flipping a mouse into the air only to catch it again. The ephemeral fiery raptor whirled, seeming to head straight toward them, her claws extended, yet it was only her wingtips which brushed their aircraft. The form of Jean herself was visible only as a dark wisp within the bird-shape, the wick within the candle flame.

The Blackbird tumbled as if it were no more than a paper airplane in a sudden breeze. The Toad did his best to right them. "More of this, and the wings are gonna snap off!" he shouted over the chaos.

"Jean!" Scott cried out. "Jean, don't do this, fight it, fight it!" Colossus prayed in Russian, his first language.

"Kitty!" The Professor leaned toward her. "Concentrate. She's coming back around. She's coming straight for us. I want you to make the Blackbird intangible for a moment—just before she hits us."

"I've never phased anything so big!" Katherine Pryde stammered out.

"I know. But it need only be for a moment. A second or two, that's all we should need. Rogue has to touch her, do you understand? Rogue, you have to be ready."

"Ah am."

"I—I." was all Kitty said.

"That's the plan, Professor?" asked Scott, stung. "That's all?"

"Under the circumstances, I have no other. Here she comes!"

A living solar flare uncurled on their horizon, growing larger.

"I'm afraid, Professor!" Kitty confessed.

"So are we all. Wait for it. Wait for it—Now!"

The Phoenix would have ripped right through the Blackbird, a hot knife slicing through butter. Kitty's power made the aircraft as substantial as any of the clouds around them, however, just long enough to encase the fatal firebird before becoming uncompromisingly solid again.

The rapid deceleration tore a gash in the flooring eighteen inches deep and a yard wide, tearing up the seats, exposing wiring and vital systems before Jean Grey crashed into the back wall, momentarily unconscious. There was certainly enough damage done to doom all aboard, reducing them to no more than a smear of metal and organic matter on the landscape below.

Rogue threw herself on Jean, and as the Phoenix moved from the woman to the girl, the inferno bloomed again. Only now it was in shades of blue and green, tinged with lavender, rather than the oranges and reds Jean had manifested. "No!" protested the Phoenix, through Rogue's lips, and the struggle tore the Blackbird apart.

On the molecular level.

And, with the exception of its hosts, all the occupants as well.

Afterward, Professor Xavier would describe that moment of discorporation, of being so suddenly dead, as 'chilly'.

Fortunately, it didn't last very long.

To Rogue, pulling the Phoenix off of Jean Grey was like using a fire hose for a Waterpik. The Phoenix flooded her, overwhelming her, spilling over and out of her, and in the process, ripped apart the plane and the people around her. All she could do was scream "No!" as they died, and she couldn't tell whether it was her own word, or the Phoenix's, as it burst from her.

Perhaps it was both.

_They lied_, she thought as she spread her wings and headed for the ground. _The voices. Now the Professor and all of them are dead, and…_

"We didn't lie," said her left-hand Mehndi-paint snake bracelet. "Your friends will be all right. Watch and sssssseee. Now come here, little one."

"I am here!" Rogue said, soaring on the Phoenix's wings. She folded them as she alit on the desert sands.

"I didn't mean you." It/ they reached out, took hold of the Phoenix—and stopped Rogue's heart.

_**Nononooooooo**_. Cried the Phoenix.

Bereft of the power, bereft of life, Rogue dropped like a stone.

* * *

AN: Okay, it's very short. Think of it as a preview. The next will be longer and come sooner. I promise! 


	60. The Phoenix of the Earth

Rogue didn't feel it when she hit the ground. Indeed, everything seemed to go very far away, like being under gas at the dentist. She knew what was going on, but it didn't seem terribly important.

The Phoenix flared in panic.

_No! No! I will not be annihilated. I will not go back to nothing!_ It was easy to imagine it as a great bird of prey, caught in a net, shrieking out its anger and fear, tearing with beak and talon.

The Voices spoke again. They sounded…different. Bigger. _**Don't be afraid.**_ Kindly and soothing, like a master falconer speaking to a newly caught fledgling. _**You were not meant to be human. You've picked up this terror of mortality from them. It comes from having lived in a body. There's nothing to be afraid of.**_

_But I am dying!_

_**Phoenixes die only to be reborn, stronger and brighter and greater than they were before. **__**Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one state to another**_.

_You cannot force me to be the sound of waves on a beach, or wind in the trees_!

_**You won't be just that. You'll be the ocean, and the sand, the trees, the wind. Everything and all. You'll even share in Jean Grey's life—as you share in everything that lives and everything that doesn't. This planet's—**_here the exact sense of what the Voices meant fractured in Rogue's mind—_**world soul/biosphere/life-force is expended and its light guttering out. You are young and new and strong. **_

_**You need a name and a purpose. You are--**_

_**GAEA! **_

With that, the Earth took in the Phoenix force like a thirsty sponge absorbing water.

For a moment, the Phoenix knew the confusion of a newborn infant. Knowing only the comforting limitations of being Jean Grey, it now awoke to innumerable sensations it never dreamed of.

In a barley field on the nightside of the Earth, a barn owl stooped, on silent white wings tipped with tawny, to catch a little brown-grey mouse nibbling on an ear of barley, and the Phoenix was, equally and simultaneously, the hunting owl, the unsuspecting mouse, the dormant life of the barley seed, a spot of mildew on the stalk, an earthworm in the ground beneath, and the ground also.

It was a polar bear striving for solid ice to haul itself up and rest upon, paddling frantically for its life. It was the ice floe, it was a microbe in the bear's digestive system, and the seal meat which was being digested.

Like a newborn, the Phoenix took a metaphoric first breath, and screamed.

Across the globe, strange things happened. In the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, a display of extinct birds, long dead, their feathers dimmed with dust—Carolina Parakeets, passenger pigeons, dodoes, Cuban kites, Coppery Thorntails, dozens of species, suddenly and miraculously returned to raucous, messy life.

Rainforests which had been razed and burned to make way for vast fields of opium poppies (the basis of heroin) and coca plants (the basis of cocaine and crack), not to mention estates and mansions for the rich, burst up from the ground as they had been at the height of their existences, steaming with life of all kinds, insects, rare orchids, hummingbirds like animate jewels and monkeys no bigger than a baby's fist.

In the hold of a poacher's ship, a butchered whale had its pieces come back together, like a film running backward. Offended at its confinement, it capsized the vessel as it freed itself and headed home to its pack, confused but alive.

And then…

…the scream of the Phoenix ended.

Phoenixes are known for being born fully grown and fully mature.

_I'm sorry_, said the Phoenix of the Earth. _I didn't understand._

_**That's all right**_, replied the Voices. _**But you owe it to Jean Grey and those who love her to put things back as they were.**_

_I'll make them even better!_ vowed the Phoenix. Reaching out, it gathered in the component molecules of the Blackbird, along with everyone and everything in it.

_**Kids!**_ snorted the Voices. _**Speaking of whom**_, _**you**__** better get back in your body before it gets cold**_.

Her heart thudded back into life. Taking a great ragged gasp, Rogue sat up. She was at the center of the exact opposite of a impact crater; instead of destruction all around her, she was in the middle of a beautiful little desert oasis. A little spring of water soaked into her left boot, and a night blooming cactus dusted her face with pollen. "Owww!" She was pins and needles all over her body. "Why do Ah hurt so bad?"

"When you cut off the cccirculation to your leg, it falls asssleep for lack of blood-flow." said the henna snake. " Youu were dead. All your cccirculation was cut off at onccce. Movement will help."

Stomping around and waving her arms vigorously, Rogue tried to glare at the snake, which fled around her arm to hide, as did the other henna animals. "And Ah wanna talk to y'all about all this. What did Ah have to go and die for?"

Poking its head back around her midsection, the dragon hennaed on her stomach said, "You had to die to carry the Phoenix into death with you. Until it died, the Phoenix could not be reborn."

"Yeah, and so now it's gonna be everywhere? All over the whole world?"

"It is the world."

"What if it goes crazy again? Is it gonna kill us all?"

"It's going to have enough to occupy its attention for a very long time."

"How long?"

"Sixty million years, at the least."

"Oh. How come y'all are acting so tiny and powerless, when you're really so mighty and all? Since y'all are so daggone powerful, why don't you just fix things between mutants and humans instead of making us run around and get shot and go through this trial and everything?"

The tiger edged back into view on the back of her hand. "You want the short version or the long version?"

She glared at it. "Start with the short. Ah'll ask for the long if I need it."

"Suit yourself." The tiger arched its back and stretched. "Here it is: You have free will."

"You mean me or people in general?"

It rolled its eyes. "In general."

"Well, Ah knew that already! Ah got a 94 on Professor Xavier's Philosophy and Ethics exam! What's the long version?"

The fish on her other hand swam around her arm and back down, trailing henna bubbles. "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll be fed for a lifetime."

It was too much."Y'all can take your fortune cookie sayings and blow them out your—"

_Rogue! Are you all right? _The Professor's mental voice interrupted her.

"Yes! Yes, Ah am! Oh, I'm so glad you are too. How is everybody else?"

_All present and accounted for_. Xavier informed her. _However, something highly unusual seems to have occurred…_

_

* * *

_A/N: Hey, it is longer and it did come sooner. Seriously, though, thanks, everybody.


End file.
